


Sorting Out the Dance Card

by Mercy



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: 1920s gay culture, M/M, Montmartre, Paris - Freeform, Period-Typical Homophobia, Roadtrip, Slow Build, oblivious Bertie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-24
Updated: 2009-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:03:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercy/pseuds/Mercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An overheard conversation changes everything. Histories, mysteries, romance, and a dive or two into the soup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Harpoons and Anonymous Crumpets

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on LJ 7/24/09 http://thirstyrobot.livejournal.com/46285.html  
>  **Warnings:** there's one bit that mentions what could be construed as dubcon, but nothing explicit.  
>  Disclaimer: I own nothing. You can probably play literary-reference bingo with this, but in the grand Wodehouse tradition, absolutely nothing is cited.   
> Notes: Serious, serious massive beta-thanks, gold stars, kittens, and cookies to storyfan, without whom you probably wouldn't have seen this for another year. I must also thank random_nexus and chaoticchaos13 for staunch support and just general good-eggishness. I ♥ you guys.

  
**1\. Of Harpoons and Anonymous Crumpets**  
  
A brief glance down the teeming stalls of the Caledonian Market afforded me an easy glimpse of the size-fourteen bowler hat towering over most mere mortals. Clutching my prize—a vase Aunt Dahlia had sent me to get for Uncle Tom's collection, if you want to know—and eager to pass it into more careful hands than mine, I ankled over. It wasn't until I'd what-ho'd him cheerily that I realised I'd interrupted Jeeves's conversation, for the erstwhile-other-converser also turned to peer at me. He was a distinguished sort of older chap, possibly a former employer or a relation.  
  
Jeeves pried the antique from my paws and made the introductions. "Inspector Bloom, my employer Mr Wooster."  
  
Well, I confess I cringed a bit, though I tried not to. When a chap's been behind bars, both justly and unjustly, on as many occasions as certain Woosters, being confronted with a man of the law even in purely innocent circs is enough to make one want to leg it down the nearest alleyway crying 'foul!' However, I stiff-upper-lipped it, trusting Jeeves wouldn't just spring some unlawful arrest on me out of the clear blue whatsit, and put an untrembling hand out in salutation.  
  
"Pleasure," the inspector said, shaking heartily, and I breathed a sigh of relief when he had no more to say about Bertram's criminal past and turned back to my man. "Well, I must be off," he said. "I hope you'll come round one day soon. No need waiting for another bout of thievery," he chortled with something in the way of a back-slap, which I had never in my life seen anyone attempt on Jeeves, but he seemed to receive it in a welcoming way.  
  
I missed whatever solicitous adieu Jeeves parried with, because I was too busy mulling over this bouts-of-thievery business. What thievery? Whose thievery? My thievery? I let the matter drop until we were safely home, the hustle and bustle of the journey not lending itself much to conversation, but as soon as I was ensconced before the hearth with the w. and s., the first words out of my mouth after the usual mutterings of gratitude for drinks delivered were, "Thievery, Jeeves? What thievery?"  
  
"Some time ago I aided an investigation of Inspector Bloom's, sir."  
  
"Aided? You mean you offered the instrumental clue that brought the blighter to justice? You pointed out the proverbial chipped bit of stonework or footprints under the window? Played Holmes to his Watson, in fact?"  
  
"The police would no doubt have reached the correct conclusion on their own had I not intervened, sir," Jeeves said lightly, busying himself with moving some _objets d'art_ aside to dust beneath them.  
  
"But you got them there faster, didn't you?"  
  
"One does not like to brag, sir," he said, not a bit of scrutability to his map.  
  
"Still, I think we're past any point where I'd think of your so-called liberties as such. I bet they gave you a medal or something that you're hiding away."  
  
"No, sir." Jeeves was now dusting a shelf that had become spotless some few passes ago, and I thought he might have sighed slightly. "The time at which the events in question occurred is not one I enjoy thinking about, let alone discussing."  
  
I'm ashamed to say that unless it was laid plainly before me like this, I never gave much thought to what Jeeves had got up to before the fateful morning (oh, all right, afternoon) he'd turned up on my doorstep. I knew he hadn't simply winked into existence then and there, of course, but I'm very much one for the present. Now, presented with a reminder that Jeeves had a past, and a possibly unpleasant one at that, I didn't quite know what to say. He wouldn't offer up those shreds of Jeeves the Man rather than Jeeves the Valet Above Valets to just anyone; it was a rare privilege of confidence that warmed the cockles of the Wooster heart, wherever the cockles are. Still, I regretted causing him the pain of remembering whatever this unpleasantness was.  
  
"And I won't make you now, Jeeves," I said quickly. "In mind of liberties, you know you're free to tell the young master to go and boil his head if he persists with impertinent questions."  
  
"You could not have known, sir," Jeeves said. "There is no harm done."  
  
Unfortunately, sometimes my mouth works faster than my mind, for no sooner had the thought begun to dawn than I came out with, "I say, you weren't wrongly implicated were you?" Then I smacked the forehead. "Go and boil your head, Bertram," I recited for him, since I doubted he'd do it himself despite the permission.  
  
There was a ghost of a smile on the Jeevesian lips. "No, sir," he said. "It was my information that led to the apprehension of the thief. It was a situation similar to the matter of Mrs Travers's pearls, only with a real theft and motives less innocent."  
  
"The lady of the house hadn't simply pawned them, you mean."  
  
"No, sir. The culprit was a footman with whom I had developed a friendship." I took the soupiness surrounding the word 'friendship' to mean he hadn't been best pleased to learn of being bosom pals with a jewel thief.  
  
"Rummy circs, Jeeves," I said. "But I won't press you further as you dislike the memory."  
  
"Thank you, sir," he said, and went back to dusting the dustless.  
  


  
  
I relate the above interlude—if one can have an interlude before the thing really even gets going—not because it had any direct bearing on the immediate unfolding of events, but because once I get to the events it bears on, I won't want to stop in the middle to go back and explain this seemingly random _rencontre._ It is safely put out of the mind for the present, or perhaps left to linger somewhere near the back so there won't be a need for any flipping of pages when the time comes to recall it.  
  
The thing that really carries all the weight for the forseeable f. is the fact that one Bonfire Night, Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps let a firecracker off in the Drones Club lavatory, after which the latch on the door was never quite the same. It couldn't be repaired, precisely, since after the legendary Roman Candle Conflagration of '98, the Committee had decreed that anything with more bang than a Christmas cracker was grounds for being tossed out on one's ear, and nobody had wanted to turn poor old Barmy in as he'd honestly mistaken it for a cigar. Therefore this latch had, and has to this day, a nasty tendency to stick at random intervals and lock one within until someone either hears the banging and the shouts of 'hi! stuck in here!' or happens to answer a call of nature.  
  
I'd personally got into the habit of telling whomever I was excusing myself from to send round a search party if I wasn't back in five minutes. There'd been no one in the area when I'd gone in, so rather than bang and shout, I simply sighed and leaned against a basin to cool my heels until someone came to spring me.  
  
Approaching footsteps and voices heralded freedom after not much heel-cooling, and I was about to apply a fist to the wood, but I stopped halfway to a knock when I heard my name.  
  
"Bertie? Bertie Wooster?" said a voice I didn't recognise. The 'yes, let me out' died on my lips, however, because I wasn't being called to. I was being talked about. "He'd never," the unfamiliar voice continued.  
  
I'd never what, I wondered. "You don't think?" asked an equally unfamiliar voice. It could've been Oofy Prosser, but I wouldn't have sworn to it. There's a thousand blokes, probably, that sound just like him, and while I could pick out even a slightly known fellow Drone by sight, I couldn't do it by sound except for my bosomest pals, and even a few of those would give me trouble with nothing else to go on. "As many girls as he's _not_ married?" continued this second chap.  
  
"Not the slightest inkling," the first chap said.  
  
"I'd bet my shirt he just hasn't worked it out," said the second chap. "You fish with a net your whole life because nobody's ever told you about harpoons, but as soon as you're given one, well! You wonder why you were bothering with this net business in the first place." I had to crane my ear to hear the end of that as they began to move away, leaving me still stuck, but I couldn't very well let on I'd heard. "I didn't know my own heart either before I..." but it had faded too much, and I was left in the dark as to what the second chap hadn't known his heart before. As much in the dark as I was as to what that had to do with harpoons, and me, and what about my heart I hadn't worked out, and what the bally blue blazes it had to do with my admittedly numerous broken engagements.  
  
I was still stewing over it when Tuppy came to let me out. No voice anywhere around me seemed to match the ones I'd heard, and Oofy was apparently in Italy somewhere, so it couldn't have been him unless someone had dragged over an extremely loud telephone. I was severely distracted from what was meant to be a relaxed afternoon conversation and card-throwing by my ponderings. I eventually gave it up as a bad job, because when there are such ponderous ponderings afoot, there's only one thing for it, and that's to put the matter to Jeeves. Therefore I beat a hasty retreat home.  
  
Jeeves was vaguely surprised to see me back so soon, and to have me barge into the kitchen rather than linger at the door to be attended to, indicated by the raising of his left eyebrow by about two hairs, but I didn't give him a chance to offer the usual pleasantries on how my outing had gone. "What know you of harpoon fishing, Jeeves?" I asked, waving him back to the seat in front of the half-polished teapot he'd been in the process of laying aside.  
  
"Some small amount, sir; I have once or twice engaged in the activity."  
  
"And would you say it's better or worse than fishing with a net?"  
  
"It would depend on the particular fish to be caught, sir," he said, noble brows knitting now a bit more than two hairs' breadth. "There is certainly more sport in it."  
  
"But if you'd never met a harpoon, you'd happily go on fishing with a net?"  
  
"More probably a line and pole, sir," he said, and I could tell he was about to if-I-may-ask me.  
  
I saved him the trouble. "You see, Jeeves, some words were unintentionally overheard. I know that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, but as I was locked in a lavatory at the time there was nothing for it. These overheard remarks have laid a bit of a puzzle at my feet, and I'm trying to work out what it means." I faithfully recounted the exchange that was now burned into my memory.  
  
Jeeves took the teapot back up and addressed his answer to it more so than to me. "It sounds, sir, as though the second conversant believes, due to his own experience, that you should consider a possibility that would not ordinarily have occurred to you but that, once it does, will seem more...exciting than the options you believed yourself to have." He didn't turn so much as an eyelash my way.  
  
"But my _heart_ , Jeeves? It's almost as though he thinks I'm positively potty for someone without knowing it."  
  
Jeeves put down the other potty thing in the room (being the teapot) and fixed me with a look I thought rather in the long-suffering line. "Do you believe such a thing to be possible, sir?"  
  
"Well, it's my heart, isn't it? Wouldn't I know?"  
  
"If I remember the reported statement correctly, sir, the implication was that you do not."  
  
"What rot," I laughed. "I'd believe myself sooner than I'd believe some anonymous crumpet who was in all likelihood talking through his hat. As for what I would and wouldn't consider, clearly this cove doesn't know me at all or he'd be in no doubt that between self and pals, I've certainly seen entanglements on every sort of line and wouldn't think anything impossible. Waitresses, cooks, ex-pickpockets, all the way up to royalty.  
  
"Besides, I've been engaged to nearly every girl I know at one time or another. What I wouldn't consider possible amounts to aunts and the elderly, and if they're the harpoon then Chap Two is welcome to them." I shuddered vaguely at the thought. Aunts had to beget other aunts somehow, I supposed, but I wanted no part in it. "Unless I'm missing something, that leaves out the entire female—" had I been holding anything, I would have dropped it, and as it was, my jaw fell a good four feet. No, he couldn't have meant— "I say!"  
  
"Sir?" Jeeves asked, seemingly oblivious to the turmoil bubbling up within the Wooster breast.  
  
"If it leaves out the female population as a whole, then— I _say._ That's a bit thick, lurking outside lavatories accusing all and sundry of...of...well, really! You don't just go about saying that sort of thing about people!"  
  
Jeeves was hard at work on the teapot, which was gleaming by this time, but apparently not gleaming enough for him. "I believe the gentleman in question implicated himself equally, if that was indeed the implication," he said. "I would not worry, sir."  
  
"Yes, I suppose he did, at that. My good name—such as it is—aside, what on earth would give anybody the idea that I...." I shook the bean in consternation. There had been a few schoolboy tumbles, of course, but everyone did that. It didn't mean anything or make you anything— my second-to-last term at Oxford would have turned out very differently were that the case. If it made you anything it would have been proven that night, but that had been no more than a champagne-fueled grab at the whatsits of yesteryear.  
  
"Even if he were entirely right," I declared, "and I believe he is not, such things are not to be acted upon when one wishes to remain free to walk the streets. Besides which, you'd be as horrified as if I were happily trundling up the aisle with Honoria Glossop, hand in your portfolio, and I probably _would_ end up married to Honoria Glossop. I might actually prefer prison, come to that."  
  
"A great many otherwise respectable persons have conducted discreet affairs of the sort you mention without detection, sir," Jeeves said, a rummy cast to his voice though the exp. was as stuffed-frog as ever. "If you were to embark on such a venture, my continued employment would depend on the other party and whether the household was altered, not the association itself."  
  
I was a bit floored, I don't mind telling you. Any more floored and I would have found myself seated upon it. "Well," I spluttered, "that's dashed...revolutionary of you, Jeeves, but I believe the point is utterly moot and it's more likely this chap was not only talking through his hat, but had it on backward."  
  
"As you say, sir."  
  
"Though I wonder—call it morbid curiosity, Jeeves—what 'other parties' would you not biff off to greener pastures over?"  
  
"Thus pressed, sir, I find myself unable to name one. It was more a theoretical."  
  
"Well. This is a silly conversation anyway, as nothing of the sort is going to occur."  
  


  
  
I resolved to put the thing from my mind and more or less succeeded. The 'less' bit of it had to do with Jeeves's remarks _re_ discreet affairs and the distinctly soupy eye he gave me occasionally over the next few days, as though he expected me to suddenly burst into poetry over my undying love for Bingo Little or similar. He wouldn't have been too far off the mark on the subj. of Bingo and discretion, but that was the most ancient of histories.  
  
Therefore, I found it necessary to lay down the law. "Jeeves, do stop eyeing me in that soupy manner," I told him two evenings after our discussion as he gathered hat and coat toward wherever valets went on their nights off.  
  
"I will endeavour to correct it, sir, if you would care to elucidate what you find objectionable."  
  
"This manner, Jeeves, the soupiness of it. The gaze that you fix upon the young master as though you expect to return home to find him wearing a green carnation and doing something compromising."  
  
"That was not my intention, sir," he said stiffly, "nor my expectation."  
  
"Well," I said, rather at a loss, "good." Of course he wouldn't have admitted it, and on reflection the soupy e. could have been attributed to the fact that the Wooster locks were beginning to want a trim.  
  
"If you require nothing further, sir?"  
  
"Er. No, Jeeves. Off you go. Have a nice time, what?"  
  
"Thank you, sir." He shimmered out, leaving a bit of frost in his wake.  
  
I gave a considering frown to the door as it shut behind him. I hated to think that these eavesdropped notions were now plaguing him; that had been the furthest thing from my mind when I'd laid my query at his door. I wondered if he had some idea of my introduction to harpoons—to continue the theme—and now worried that there were dangers to our happy bachelorhood on two fronts.  
  
But that was just it— it was _happy_ bachelorhood. I had no idea of tying myself to anyone in that manner, above-board or otherwise. Considering the man's dizzying intellect, he shouldn't have had to question it. I'd told him time and again how lost I'd be without him, and rather proven it on several occasions. It went without saying that his situation was in no danger from anyone.  
  
There was the stomach-knotting possibility, of course, that he wasn't as tolerant toward this business of discreet... _harpooning_ as he'd made out, and was now looking for any sign that there would be any going on in case he needed to alert his inspector friend and leg it in the other direction. But he'd as good as said he wouldn't, and given his lack of compunction at expressing strong opinions on haberdashery and stringed instruments, I was forced to conclude that there was nothing to it and it had to be my hair.  
  
Not entirely at ease, but a little more so, I settled in for a quiet evening in the company of a tall scotch and a short novel. I'd just got comfortable and was no great distance into either  before the ears were assaulted by the ringing of the telephone.  
  
It's rummy how events can seem to relate to each other even when they likely had no intention of doing so. The voice on the other end belonged to none other than the Reverend H.P. Pinker, known to those near and dear as Stinker due to his tendency to trip over anything that crosses his path. I have mentioned in the preceding paragraphs a certain nostalgic mistake at Oxford; it was before he took orders, of course, but Stinker was the other party to it. In fact, at the time I judged it as the reason he started buttoning his collar in the back.  
  
Not that I'd ever asked him, as what followed the ill-considered evening had been several years of his being too busy learning the curate business to see much of his old pals. By the time I'd seen him again he'd been engaged to Stiffy Byng and seemed to have forgotten all about it, which was what I'd suggested in the first place. I wouldn't have thought of it now if not for the subj. having been brought up by my lavatory incarceration, but as it was I saw this rummy sort of relation-of-events. Stinker was in London and had something he wanted to talk to me about, he said, and once I'd invited him round for luncheon the following day and rung off, I found myself oddly nervous.  
  
There was the chance that he simply wanted me to commit some act of theft on Stiffy's behalf, of course, but circs being what they were, my first thought was in the line of, 'Gads! What if he wants to dredge all that up?' But he'd sounded perfectly cheery, so I cautiously put it down to my imagination playing up.  
  
The memory, too, worked its magic, bringing back a long-buried settee, too much champagne, and hands everywhere. _Everything_ everywhere, and skin, and slurred words of adoration the likes of which I'd never heard directed at yours truly before or since. In the h. of the m. it had been one thing, of course; in the harsh light of morning Stinker had looked on me with dawning horror. I'd tried to console him by telling him there was nothing to it, just old friends reminiscing. That had been when he'd stormed out, and the aforementioned next words he spoke to me were years later as a curate and future Mr Stiffy.  
  
Could this be what the overheard bloke had been referring to? Did he, heaven forbid, somehow know of it and believe I was secretly and unknowingly pining? No. I'd have to be dead not to find the act itself pleasant (and the memory of it rather embarrassingly affecting, which was dealt with before bed), but the only remotely pine-like or any other evergreen sort of thought I had towards Stinker Pinker was for an excellent friendship cut down in its prime and never quite mended.  
  
I knew my own heart quite well, thank you very much. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have a go at bit more mending, now all the troubles were behind us. Whatever it was Stinker wanted, I'd give the old college try at accomplishing it as a demonstration of goodwill and steadfast palliness.  
  
  
I did not add this new collection of thoughts to the set of ponderings I'd laid at Jeeves's door, as he defrosted several degrees when I told him over the breakfast tray that I'd like my hair cut, and I wouldn't have wanted to spoil it even if I hadn't managed to work matters out on my own. It may seem odd that a not-impecunious chap with all the barbers in London and environs at his disposal would choose to have the barbering done at home, but Jeeves is as hidebound on matters of coiffure as he is on fashion.  
  
I'd gone to a barber exactly once since he'd entered my employ, very early in his tenure, and not only had he disapproved of the configuration of the mane itself, he'd actually seemed rather insulted I hadn't asked him to do it. Years of subjection to Auntery has taught me that if one lacks a strong opinion on a subj, the thing is best left up to the party who does not lack one. As I don't personally mind what's going on atop the onion as long as there is no wild curling or lopsidedness, I'd done the sensible thing and left it up to him ever since.  
  
Well, I'd started out with no strong opinion on Jeeves vs. barbers, but one experience in his capable hands had put me firmly on his side of the argument. Jeeves does not merely cut hair, nor does he stop at the application of hot towels and razor to the face. I'm perfectly capable of de-whiskering the jowls myself, of course, but there's truly nothing like having it done for you properly. Jeeves's skill in this alone would have sold me on the notion, but he does nothing by halves and tends to surpass even wholes.  
  
Barbering à la Jeeves also includes painstaking attention to the finger and toenails and the dashed pleasant massage of something tingly and good-smelling into the scalp. This last bit has the effect of reducing Bertram to a pliant patient who would quite happily sit still to have his very eyelashes tweezed out, not that Jeeves would do such a thing.  
  
"Jeeves," I said in the course of these ministrations, putting voice to a thing I'd often wondered about in a vague way but never given overmuch thought to, "where did you learn to do this? Do they teach valet lessons someplace?"  
  
"While there are not 'lessons' in the strictest sense, sir," he said, setting my left foot back into its slipper and picking up my right, "certain of the staff in larger households do offer some instruction and guidance when a young man's intentions towards his future career become known, whatever they may be. I was fortunate to have the personal attendant of the headmaster at the school where I was first employed take an interest in me. And as you know, sir, several of my family are also in service and were generous with passing on their particular wisdom."  
  
"Like your Uncle Charlie, you mean?" I asked. "I say, that tickles."  
  
He altered his grip on my twitching toe. "I beg your pardon, sir. Yes, my Uncle Charlie was most instructive, as was my father."  
  
I peered down at him in surprise. I'd never heard him mention his father, never even given much thought to the idea of him having one, but of course he hadn't sprung fully formed from some Olympian head. "Your father, eh?" I said. "If you're anything to go on, I bet he's a force to be reckoned with, what?"  
  
"He was a formidable man, sir, in his time," Jeeves said to my foot. The odd quietness of it pointed to my blunder: his father was no longer with us. I was about to mutter some apology but Jeeves continued. "He was butler at Beacham Park for the last half of his life."  
  
"Beacham Park? But I used to go there when I was a lad. The lady of the house was a great friend of my mother's. I don't remember what the butler's name was, but it wasn't Jeeves, as presumably it would've been had the chap been he."  
  
"My father's health forced him to retire several years before he passed on," Jeeves said. "I doubt you would have been more than six years old at the time, sir."  
  
I'd distracted him with the unhappy memories again; he was simply holding my right foot without doing anything to it. I gave the toes a wiggle and he snapped back into action, popping up and parking himself on a stool in front of me to get at my hands.  
  
I don't know if it was the trip down memory lane or if it was simply a day for noticing things I didn't ordinarily notice, but I found myself very aware of Jeeves's hands as they went about their filing and clipping. I remembered—vividly, from all the boxing of ears and shoving-into of clothing they did—how rough and red my Nannie Pete's hands had been. Her name hadn't been Pete, of course. It had been Peterson, but she'd always been Nannie Pete to me. Ear-boxing or not, I'd been quite put out when Aunt Agatha had let her go after my parents joined the ranks of the dearly departed.  
  
But to get back to the point, the hands that I was now inspecting were, while certainly a pair that had seen a good bit of work, not the painful-looking sandpapery sort one acquired when made to shove them constantly into dishwater and boot polish. They were as well-groomed as my own, not a nail chipped or a speck of dirt, and while a bit tough in places with small calluses, smooth. Large, of course, befitting such a giant among men, and strong, but also nimble enough to wield the tiny scissors with great precision. They were also, I noted, very warm. I couldn't help but gaze on them fondly, these singular appendages that hauled me so faithfully out of the soup time and again.  
  
Jeeves didn't look up to see the fond g., which upon reflection was a good thing. I utter no end of rot in Jeeves's presence, but I could envision the polite throat-clearing and raised brow that would be the result of 'oh, I was just appreciating your hands.' Especially in light of recent topics of discussion, he might take such a thing in a different spirit than it was meant.  
  
It was certainly the fumes of whatever tonic was added to the hot towels Jeeves swathed my head in that caused an unbidden and highly inappropriate thought about the hands in question to bubble its way up. Once said thought had made its entrance, though, I couldn't quite shake it and became very glad that there was a sheet draped round my shoulders to hide some rather damning evidence that would have made it plain what sort of thoughts I was thinking.  
  
Not about Jeeves specifically, you understand. About hands in general, the merits of large strong ones, and the places they could go. This made twice in what by the clock wasn't even a full day. I am not made of stone, nor am I particularly pious, and as such do entertain the occasional impure thought and all that goes with it, but this was a level of distraction not seen since the days when my age ended in _teen._  
  
I hoped ignoring my condition would make it go away on its own, but it only got worse when the towels came off and the barbering began in earnest. Even so much as a fingertip applied to steady or guide seemed to send a little shot of fire southward, and the less said about the bally scalp massage the better. And there was a worse problem: any moment, Jeeves would declare the hair cut and whip off the sheet with a flourish.  
  
About the only thing I could think of that was more unpleasant than sitting here in this state was Jeeves knowing I'd been sitting here in this state. And then what? It would be one thing if it had just happened on its own while I was a safe distance away and he'd just happened to notice, but at present he'd no doubt think it a result of his activities. He'd be horrified, he'd go, and there'd be no getting him back. I'd be forever denounced in the annals of valetry as some sort of carnivorous lech, if not simply left to the law to deal with.  
  
That did the trick, thank heavens. Wooster Minor had the good sense to realise that a Jeevesless household was no world for Woosters of any sort, and meekly lay down enough so that there was not a nasty scene when the sheet came off. Still, I thought it best to keep my distance until I got matters under better control, so rather than malinger in the kitchen while he popped the luncheon makings into pots and pans as was sometimes my wont when I lacked for any better occupation, I parked myself at the piano for the duration and took care to choose tunes that would have him not wanting to be anywhere near me.  
  
Intent on my ivory-tickling as I was, I failed to notice the ringing of the bell or the admitting of Stinker until he'd tripped over the entry rug and narrowly avoided smithereening a bookcase. I what-ho'd him heartily and very studiously did not think of hands as he shook mine.  
  
"Keep playing if you like," he said, putting himself in a chair without incident. "I was just thinking I rather missed it."  
  
This, I judged, was either a calculated bit of flattery in hopes of having me agree to whatever favour he was after, or a prelude to a dredging-up of history. Despite Stinker possessing all the guile of a soup spoon, I chose the conclusion that would not cause me to panic.  
  
"Yes, I suppose you'd be rather starved for music that isn't all holy lambs and mountains green. Nothing against either, of course," I hastened to add, and launched into the first thing I could think of before he could say anything else. The first thing I thought of happened to be 'Everybody Loves My Baby,' likely owing to the fact that it had been a great favourite of both of ours back in the halcyon days of Magdalen. I'd meant to avoid anything that had even a flirtation with the subj., but I couldn't very well stop and change my mind halfway through.  
  
Stinker was laughing when I'd finished. Wiping at a wistful eye he said, "Do you remember when you told Tuppy he could work off his bridge debt if he went and sang that under Old Wossit's window at midnight?"  
  
Alas, memory lane was to be trodden whether I liked it or not. Still, it was a fond one, as anything that leaves Tuppy looking an ass tends to be, and I could not help but laugh reminiscently along with him. Old Wossit, for the uninitiated, was more formally known as one Oldham Wotherington, the exacting Informator and bane of all chorally inclined Magdalenians, famous for abhorring anything remotely modern.  
  
"And then all he did was throw a shoe and grumble 'damn cat,'" I remembered. "I was rather hoping for at least a chamberpot. It would have stood me in good stead to look back on after Tuppy forced me into the Drones swimming bath in full evening dress."  
  
"Oh, I don't know," Stinker said. "You've got to admit—"  
  
I didn't find out what it was I had to admit, because Jeeves floated in to announce the readiness of lunch, and by the time we were seated and served, Stinker's mirth had faded and he was looking across the table at me with the baleful sort of eye McIntosh gets when he's been whacked with a newspaper. McIntosh being my Aunt Agatha's doted-upon dog, of course. I was a coward on instinct and did not tell him to out with it. "So how fares old Stiffy?" I asked instead. "All forward-march on the matrimonial bliss front?"  
  
"Oh, yes," he said. "Partly why I'm in town, actually. The first batch of invitations went astray in the post somewhere and Stephanie insisted I collect the replacements from the engravers in person."  
  
Never one to be cowed by ill omens, was Stinker. "Jolly good. When's the happy day?"  
  
"First of August. Bertie, there's—" He stopped short as Jeeves came to deliver the main course. Speaking of ill omens, I thought it not a very good one that he didn't like to say whatever he was going to say with Jeeves in attendance. "You know you're my oldest friend, don't you?" he said when we were once again just the two.  
  
I blinked. I rather would have thought the honour would go to some old school chum, but I was not one to question such things. Still: "Whenever that question has been asked of me, it's almost invariably ended with me in some sort of grave peril."  
  
"Oh, it's nothing like that," he said with a laugh. "I only wanted to ask if you'd be best man."  
  
I had to laugh myself. "With bells on," I said with relief. "But why this cloak and dagger bit? You could have asked me over the 'phone."  
  
Stinker heaved a great heft of a sigh and let his fork clatter down to the plate. I could nearly hear Jeeves flinch on the other side of the door. "She's driving me mad, Bertie. Absolutely crackers. I'm the one that insisted on fetching the invitations because I had to get five minutes to breathe for myself."  
  
"Aha," I said, understanding at last. "I'm sure Jeeves can find some way to get you out of it."  
  
"No!" he exclaimed, with force, poised as though to physically restrain me if need be. "No. I don't want out of it."  
  
I was unconvinced. If he couldn't stick her now, when she was still under the watchful thumb of Sir Watkyn Bassett, what of sharing house and home? "She's a corking girl, of course, but even the best of us err in our judgment on what we can bear to death-do-us-part with. Nothing wrong at all in it, as long as she thinks it was her idea to break it off."  
  
"Anyone would think you didn't want me to marry her." I do believe he meant it to sting.  
  
"I want you to marry whomever you want to marry," I said, piqued.  
  
"Then why are you trying to get me out of it?"  
  
"I thought you wanted out of it. Driving you mad, had to get away, that sort of thing. Leads one to the wanting-out-of-it conclusion."  
  
"I don't. I have to marry her."  
  
"I say! You haven't gone and got her—"  
  
"No! Lord, no. It's—" He sighed, looked round, and dropped his voice so I could only barely hear. "Would you mind awfully sending Jeeves off on some errand or other?"  
  
"He's got better things to do than listen at keyholes, you know." I was mildly insulted at the insinuation.  
  
"Please."  
  
What could I do? I convinced him to at least finish the repast, though he only picked at his, and mine rather turned to ashes under the strain of all the impending doom. Dredging-up, I was sure of it, in which case I sincerely did not want Jeeves present myself. Not, of course, that he listens at keyholes unless absolutely necessary, but as I well knew it was easy to overhear things one didn't mean to hear.  
  
Of course, I could think of no good reason to send Jeeves away that would sound plausible, so I quietly told him more or less the truth. "He seems to want to discuss something he doesn't want anybody else overhearing. In normal circs I'd tell you to put an ear to the wall and see what you could make of it, but if it's what I think it is, I think you might find the dark a better place to remain."  
  
"Very good, sir." And who could blame him if he said it in a soupy tone? Very little good ever comes of my leaving him out of a scheme. "Will two hours be sufficient?"  
  
"Oh, yes, I should think so. But don't come rushing back on my account. Have a nice leisurely afternoon somewhere." Bad enough I was telling him to go; the least I could do was not also dictate for how long.  
  
He went, and I once-mored unto the breach. Stinker stood at the window and said nothing, watching until Jeeves was deposited onto the pavement below.  
  
"Well?" I demanded, not the very soul of patience at this juncture. "You were about to tell me why you _must_ marry Stiffy, I think, only I didn't get the impression it was your heart issuing the imperative."  
  
He turned and fixed me with a moue of sad placidity. "It's my only chance."  
  
While not the most prized catch going, if one went in for penniless clerics and didn't like to keep a lot of breakables about, one couldn't form a more perfect union. "Oh, come. Plenty of girls—"  
  
"She's the only one that's ever interested me in the slightest." Not precisely the poetry of an adoring heart, but only once had I known him to be remotely soppy and those had been extreme circs. "And I've always wanted a family."  
  
"Well, I hear marriage is the way to go about getting one. But for a man getting what he wants, you don't seem the picture of contentment."  
  
"Don't be an ass, Bertie. You know what I am."  
  
"Er."  
  
He went back to staring out the window. "I _should_ be happy. Grateful I've got the chance to be respectable."  
  
"You're perfectly respectable as you are. If one needs a wife to be respectable—"  
  
"Oh, it's all right for you. Anybody with money can do as he likes without too much trouble." It's worth noting that Stinker did not have any aunts. "But for me it would only be a matter of time before people began to wonder."  
  
"Wonder?"  
  
He spun around, red in the face, raked a violent hand through his hair and half-shouted, "For pity's sake, have I got to spell it out?"  
  
"Oh," I said. I'd been rather refusing to think about it, but there was now no avoiding allowing the thing to dawn. What he was getting at was that marriage, to a girl of any sort, wasn't what he wanted because he was— well, what had been to me a sort of minor indiscretion between us was something he might've liked to make a habit of. Not with me, necessarily, but certainly not with girls. Or, I realised with a gulp when I saw the look he was giving me, possibly indeed with me specifically. "Oh." Those declarations had not been mere drunken babble. And I'd gone and told him it meant nothing. "I'm so very sorry. If I'd known—"  
  
"It wouldn't have made a bit of difference. You probably did us both a favour, just ending it then and there."  
  
"I never meant to be ending anything. Only you looked so dashed horrified! I didn't want you to go away. I thought I could just sort of smooth it over and go on as we always had."  
  
"Did you really?" He laughed, but it had a bitter edge to it.  
  
"I don't know why that's so surprising. Everyone did in school. I thought it was the same sort of thing, romance of friendship and all that."  
  
"On your side. That wasn't all it was for me."  
  
"All I can do is be sorry," I said. "The last thing I ever wanted was to cause you any pain."  
  
"I know that." He smiled in a soft sort of way. "You never want to cause anyone any pain. It's why you let everyone mess you about so."  
  
"No one does any messing about of any Woosters," I protested, even as he caught me round the waist and pulled me towards him.  
  
"Then why are you letting me do this?" His voice had taken on a gravelly quality.  
  
I didn't know, really, but the steadily more embrace-like hold was beginning to stir the same stirrings that had so inconveniently stirred earlier.  
  
"Why aren't you shoving me away?" This was said very near to my ear, and I shivered. "I think you like this. I don't think you like girls at all."  
  
It was indeed an undeniable fact that no girl had ever had this effect on me, not even when I was fifteen and Minnie Walker had put her hand down my trousers. "I don't know anything anymore," I sighed. Because it was nice, too bally nice, but at the same time there was something not quite _right_. Not that it was wrong, but that it was missing that sort of rightness these things ought to have. What is a stirring embrace ever missing but contact of lips, I thought, and remedied the oversight.  
  
There were not fireworks. My insides did not turn to jelly. That isn't to say it wasn't pleasant—no vicar or future vicar should have any right to kiss like that, for the good of the Church if nothing else—but that thingness I'd been seeking was still notably absent. I was also mildly surprised, when it stopped and I opened my eyes, that the ones blinking back in me in confusion were brown and not blue. In hindsight it makes perfect sense, of course, but at that present moment I put it down to misremembering.  
  
"I'm sorry," I said, stepping back to a decent distance and hanging my head.  
  
"It's not that I'm not a girl, is it? It's that I'm not— who, then?"  
  
"I don't know. Perhaps there is no _who_ and never will be." I peered at him worriedly. "I haven't made it worse, have I?"  
  
"It would be my fault if you had."  
  
"Do you love her? Stiffy, I mean. Even a little bit?"  
  
"Yes. Not like I— yes. Enough, I think. I always knew I'd marry someone."  
  
"And the driving you mad?"  
  
"I hear it's a wife's job. I don't suppose you'll still stand up with me?"  
  
"Of course I will, if you want me to."  
  
He stepped up and again embraced me tightly, more along brotherly lines this time. "Thank you," he said, and I think it was for more than just agreeing to stand as best man.  
  
And that was sort of that, in view of Stinker at least. We shared a not-horribly-uncomfortable parting glass in friendship and he went on his way.  
  
In view of self, there was still quite a lot of working-out and mulling-over to do. There was absolutely no way past admitting that I'd enjoyed this kiss a great deal more than previous ones because it had occurred with someone of the male persuasion.  
  
Modern medicine held that I should be going straight to Sir Roderick Glossop to apply for a padded room; modern law held that I should be in a cell of a different sort. As neither sounded pleasant, I dismissed both. Once upon a time, 'modern' medicine had believed one should bathe as little as possible and that drilling holes in one's head would release the demons. Perhaps this, too, would one day be looked back on as barbaric ignorance.  
  
But why, then, if I was that way inclined, had something in me balked at the idea of inclining that way with Stinker? I could do much worse. Then again, I could do much worse than marry a few of the girls I hadn't married. And even if I could have, I wouldn't have married him. Ergo, as the Bard said, I did not love him. The thing to do, I reasoned, was not to be bothered about it until someone came along who I could love. If someone did.  
  


  
  
I'd managed to work myself into decent spirits by the time Jeeves returned home, though I was still not entirely at ease in my mind and all its new discoveries.  
  
"Was your conversation successful, sir?" Jeeves asked, and it's to his credit that there wasn't the faintest hint of soup in his voice.  
  
"Oh, quite, quite," I said, for what else could I say? "A thing or two is cleared up that wanted clearing up, and all the wheels within wheels are set full steam ahead on the Stinker-Stiffy nuptials." There, that had something of the truth to it.  
  
"I am glad to hear it, sir."  
  
But the spirits declined into restlessness, and the B. Wooster who enjoyed his after-dinner gargle was a distinctly pacing creature. What was this missing rightness? Would I know it when it arrived? I flitted hither and thither, never managing to alight with any satisfaction.  
  
"If you'll pardon the observation, sir," said Jeeves somewhere in the midst of the umpteenth unsettled turn about the room, "you seem out of sorts."  
  
"I am, Jeeves, I am," I admitted, but I could admit no more than that, so I followed with, "and I don't know why. I should be resting perfectly content on the laurels of a job well done. And yet rest I cannot. The very cushions rankle, Jeeves."  
  
"Perhaps a change of scenery, sir?"  
  
I fairly groaned. "For the seventy-fifth time, Jeeves, we are not going to Japan." It was the latest destination set by his ever-present Viking spirit, and he'd been dropping little hints here and there for a few weeks now.  
  
"I was more in mind of Paris in any case, sir," he said. "There is an exhibition of Eastern antiquities at the Grand Palais, and if some time out of London would improve your spirits, it would have the effect of killing two birds with one stone."  
  
"This exhibish, it's rather a big do?"  
  
"It has been much-anticipated, yes sir."  
  
"Well, then, how the dickens will we find a hotel at such late notice?"  
  
"I was given to understand that you had a house in the city at your disposal, sir."  
  
"What, potty Uncle Henry's place?" Somehow I'd become trustee of it when he'd popped off to rabbit heaven. Uncle Henry had barely used it himself, in his dotage, and some old pal of his there looked after it for me. It was meant to go to Claude and Eustace, his sons and my own troublesome cousins, when they came of age.  
  
Why he'd handed the reins to me and not to Aunt Emily with the rest of the estate was anyone's guess, but then again, there was a reason he was _potty_ Uncle Henry. It didn't sound at all bad when I gave it a bit of thought. "I suppose it'll do," I said, "if the roof hasn't caved in. Can you get a telegram to Jonas Birmingham or whatever his name is, let him know we'll be turning up?"  
  
I half-expected Jeeves to tell me he'd already arranged it all, but he simply very-good-sirred me (after correcting me on the point of the fellow's name, which was _Britting_ ham) and shimmered out, leaving me alone with my thoughts.  
  
The thoughts were not of a light and happy nature, and I eventually resolved that I just shouldn't have any more of them at all for the time being and called it an early night.  
  
I did notice that Jeeves had laid out my red silk pyjamas without complaint, which he only did (without complaint, anyway) when he'd put me through some sort of ordeal or I was in a very bad mood. I don't know precisely what he had against them—I think I heard him mutter something about opium dens the day I came home with them—but the move was clearly calculated to cheer the young master up. Though it didn't really accomplish its intention with any great import, I took the gesture in the spirit intended.  
  
Despite the stop-the-presses order I'd issued to the thinking mechanism of the bean, the cogs of thought kept not-so-merrily rolling along. Couple that with an overwarm night, as this night was, and you have the perfect recipe for a rapid boil of the stewpot of the mind that meant sleep proved elusive well into the ticking over of the wee hours.  
  
The stew ingredients were, roughly, as follows:  
  


One pint 'well, now, what does this make me?'  
One half-pint 'what is this missing thingness?'  
One pound hashed 'will I ever find it?'  
One half-pound diced 'if I do, will it be found with a person of the male persuasion?'  
One quarter-pound 'does such a person exist?'  
Several teaspoons 'Jeeves will leave if he ever finds out.'  
Plus a dash of bitters.  


  
Somewhere along the way I moved my cogitations out to the sitting room in hopes of cooling off a bit. I'd been there some little time when a light caught my attention, revealing as its source a dressing-gowned Jeeves coming through the kitchen.  
  
I must've looked a sad sight, a little red ball upon the sofa with my head upon my knees, because he instantly abandoned his quest for a glass of water or whatever he'd wanted and planted himself before me.  
  
"Are you quite well, sir?" he asked, betraying as much concern as I'd ever seen from him.  
  
"Yes, Jeeves, I'm fine. I simply can't sleep. Probably this heat." And it _was_ dashed oppressive. Summery nights have never bothered me much since I've been grown, but as a child it used to send me into fits where I'd tear off my nightwear and some unfortunate servant would have to drag me out of whatever lake or pond was on the premises, in the middle of the night and naked as the day I was born. I've outgrown such practices except under the influence of a great deal of drink, fortunately, and even then the vestments tend to stay in place.  
  
Jeeves floated out, and for a moment I thought he was leaving me to it, but he appeared back directly with a frosty glass of iced soda water and a cold wet cloth, applying the latter to the back of my neck. I didn't want the excuse of water-marks for the prized pyjamas joining the ranks of scores of objectionable ties and hats, so after weighing the options for a moment I unbuttoned the top and slid it off. The whole thing vastly improved my outlook, as though my mind had simply boiled over from all the stewing and needed to be cooled down.  
  
"Thank you, Jeeves," I said with gratitude, drinking deep ere I spoke. I swiped haphazardly at a few drops that had escaped down my front. Jeeves produced a handkerchief from somewhere, and with an allow-me-sir, wiped them away more effectively. His fingers brushed against the skin of my neck in the process, and they were nice and cool too, probably from scrabbling round in the ice. I shivered slightly and he pulled his hand away. I was on the verge of telling him to put it back. Such a request could not have gone over well, and luckily I had no chance to make it because he laid a cool palm across my forehead.  
  
"I feared you might be feverish, sir," he explained, the posish we were in requiring that to be said rather close to my ear.  
  
Unfortunately, I have a bit of a thing about my ears, and that piled onto earlier events and thoughts and whatever was the matter with me caused, yet again, the unbidden stirrings I'd been fending off all day. This would most certainly not do. "I think I can sleep now, Jeeves," I said, extracting myself as quickly as possible without making it obvious I was trying to escape. "Sorry to have kept you up." I hied the traitorous corpus to the concealing cover of bedclothes while there was still time.  
  
Jeeves followed me in with the forgotten pyjama top, luckily not before I was safely covered, and helped me into it. When I looked up to thank him, I reeled and would have fallen had I been standing: his eyes were the exact shade of blue I'd been expecting earlier.  
  
The turmoiled stew gained another ingredient, once I'd stammered a goodnight and been left to my own devices: what in bally blue blazes did that mean? It seemed to me as though Jeeves's so-called psychology of the individual might well apply, but I couldn't precisely ask him. Did I sub-whatsit-ly want to kiss Jeeves?  
  
Cautiously, I prodded that thought and attempted to imagine it, and good _lord._ The stirrings whipped themselves into a full-on dervish, and I think I might have actually groaned.  
  
Anyone who knows me will lay good money that I will be among the last to work a thing out, when a thing needs working out, but this? This was so stupidly simple that even one so slow of study as Bertram ought to have eureka'd it straight away. Too many cooks had spoilt the broth and I'd missed what was right in front of me. Jeeves was the only person I'd ever wanted with me in a permanent way. He often knew me better than I knew myself. He made me laugh, and I spent his absences in a hopeless funk. If that was not deep and abiding love, I didn't know what was.  
  
But on the heel of one woe, after only the briefest respite of relief, another tread. Stirrings and stew were both washed down the drain by a ponderous vat of 'oh no.' If I thought he'd be horrified at wrongly thinking I was...stirred by him, that paled against him thinking it rightly. He'd run for the hills at something so improper. Whatever revolutionary theoreticals he might posit, I'm sure he had no idea of them ever applying to him in an actual and specific way. Icy tendrils of fear wove themselves round my heart.  
  
Jeeves could not go. That was, and always had been, absolutely paramount, even if it meant labouring in some harsh wintry place forever unrequited.  
  
His mere companionship would have to suffice, as it always had done, because the thought of his going was more awful than ever, more so even than places harsh or wintry. Thus decided, I drifted at last into fitful slumber.  
  



	2. Stiff Upper Lip, Bertie

**2\. Stiff Upper Lip, Bertie**

Waking up when something momentous has happened, I've found, presents a few moments of amnesia. For that first bit of blinking against the light and hearing the birds twitter, if you are not in London and there are in fact birds that twitter and not simply a load of pigeons, it's just any other day's waking up, 'shouldn't have drunk so much' or 'oh, kink in my neck.' Then the world intrudes full force and it's 'oh, lord, my parents are dead' or 'oh, lord, I'm still engaged to Madeline Bassett.' Or, in this case, 'oh good lord, I'm in love with Jeeves and I can never tell him.'

I was, wasn't I? The whole thing hadn't just been some sort mad notion brought on by an overheating of the brain muscle, had it?

Roughly four seconds in Jeeves's presence proved that it had not. He went about the same routine as the Jeeves of any other day, popping in with the tea and the messages and the news of the world. But he seemed different. Eyes bluer, hair shinier, hands stronger and more skilled. I think I spent a full minute just watching his fingers. He seemed to take this glassy-eyed wonderment as par for the just-woken Wooster course, for I've never been equal to much until well into a biggish spot of tea.

"Has your difficulty sleeping last night left you too fatigued for travel, sir?" he asked, ever looking after me.

Right, Paris. I smiled, knowingly I should think. Paris, where I knew almost no one and would depend on Jeeves for company. Paris, in a house where Uncle Henry had never kept any servants other than a couple of girls who lived out because there was nowhere to put them, and Jeeves would be just across the hallway. I liked the idea as much as I dreaded it. "Are we going today?"

"Mr Brittingham cabled this morning, sir, advising that the house would be in readiness as soon as this afternoon."

"Well, then, we'll hie us there directly. I'm not so awfully tired. I can catch a few more winks on the train if needs must."

"Regrettably, sir, all the compartments are booked for the next several days."

"Oh, that's all right. Second class won't kill me."

"I had taken the liberty of instead arranging for the car to be serviced and garaged at Folkestone for the duration of our stay, sir, but I can, of course, alter the plans."

It was a fine enough idea— a nice country drive and no worries about the timing of ferries and trains.

I had not stopped to consider the close quarters of the two-seater, which are made even closer when the passengers are two full-grown chaps not at all on the short side. We'd taken a thousand drives in it together, but never had I been so aware of how frightfully close he was.  I was rather unsettled by it until about the time we swung out of the metrop, at which point a little devil on my shoulder piped up and said, 'Sit back and enjoy it, Wooster, you won't get many excuses to be smashed up against him.'

So I did my level best to take it all in. The way his hair cream blended with his aftershave to form the quintessential Jeeves bouquet, with undernotes of laundry starch, tea, and dish soap. It was still blasted hot out so he was faintly sweating round the temples. I was a bit toasty in just my shirtsleeves, so I couldn't imagine how he must feel encased in yards of dark suit, but it served to enhance the _eau de_ , if you will, even further. I found myself wishing he'd get rid of the jacket and roll up his sleeves. I remembered his arms being very nice specimens the handful of times I'd seen them, mostly as a result of barging in on him at odd hours in emergencies. Once he'd even been fresh from the bath and not even into his dressing gown, and I wished I'd taken the time to appreciate what was now but a hazy memory.

I lit myself a cigarette just to have something to do other than think about the thousands of knees and elbows all brushing against each other, as at country-road speeds there can't be much in the way of conversation unless one wants to shout. Shout I did to offer a smoke to Jeeves, which he accepted. I saw no easy way for him to light it himself as well as not crash the car, and so took rather a liberty, as Jeeves might have called it, popping an already-lit specimen between his lips. His—oh dear—very very soft lips, I found as one of my fingers caught slightly on the bottom l. as I retrieved my hand.

As if that weren't innard-jellying enough, he looked over and half-smiled (for Jeeves, anyway, which is about a sixteenth-smile for anyone else) in thanks, the Turkish clamped in the corner of his mouth. The effect was rather dashing, what with the windblown hair and cheeks pinkened by hearty country air. It wasn't merely that he cut a striking figure, but that just for a fleeting instant, I felt I was afforded a little-seen glimpse of _le vrai homme_ , if you will, behind the Jeevesian mask. I knew bits and pieces of said v. h., of course, as a good many were part of what he presented to the world at large. But the rest— I wanted to know all of it. Alongside the jellied thrill shot a pang of longing, because I knew how unlikely it was that I ever really would.

What sort of person did it take, I wondered, looking pensively out over the open road, to figure highly in the affections of one R. Jeeves? The two examples I had were useless. Whatever 'understanding' he'd had with the rotund and motherly woman now known as Lady Bittlesham had surely been part of some scheme, or perhaps one of those accidental things that so often befalls yours truly. Then there was Bingo's (first) waitress, who, while a pretty girl and seemingly goodish egg, had never been heard of again once Jeeves had presumably won her. Perhaps he'd been put off by her taste in neckwear. I couldn't imagnine her being a good match for him; the thought of her hanging on his words while he rattled on about Spinoza was utterly laughable.

"Whatever happened to Mabel?" I asked some time later, once we we'd been poured into the more conversation-convenient interior of the ferry.

"My niece, sir?" Jeeves asked.

"No, the waitress. Weren't you engaged?"

"I believe the young lady is lately married to a baronet, sir."

"Oh. Bad luck." Not mine, of course, but 'well, thank heavens!' was most certainly not the thing to say.

"It is of little consequence, sir. We were not suited."

"Oh? What was the matter with her?"

"While an undoubtedly attractive and amiable young lady, sir, once the customary conversation of new acquaintance was exhausted, it was discovered that we had but little ground of mutual interest."

So it had been a not-dizzying-enough intellect. I didn't do much better, I realised glumly. I certainly appreciated Jeeves's vast knowledge of more or less everything ever to have been printed and bound, but when it came to the meat of what any of it was actually about, I was hopeless.

First and foremost, any paramour of Jeeves would most certainly be able to hold up the other end of an erudite discussion. I would have to do better, not that I really had the first idea how to go about it. It was too bad nobody had put out 'The Utter Nitwit's Guide to Matters of Philosophy' or something similar. They'd make a bally fortune.

We were in the observation deck, self ensconced into one of the bolted-down wing chairs, Jeeves hovering at my elbow. I realised, unpleasantly, that he was waiting to either be dismissed or given an at-ease. It was the man's job, his very proud career, to do what I told him. If I simply said, 'Kiss me, Jeeves,' would he, whether or not he wanted to? He'd certainly gone against my wishes in more trifling matters, the placing of bets and the disposal of jackets, but wouldn't a demand like that have a sort of 'or else' on the end of it? I hoped he knew me better than that, but the fact remained that if I ever made so much as a peep of what I really wanted, and he agreed to it, I would never know the reason behind it.

I must've come over a bit green at that, because Jeeves said, "You are not seasick, sir?"

"No, no," I sighed. "But do sit down, Jeeves, it's giving me a pain in the neck looking up at you."

He perched in the chair across from me, sitting because I'd said sit.

I had a glance round the ferry co.'s attempt at a sitting room, in which we were more or less alone, as most of the other passengers were below deck availing themselves of the luncheon service. Food, channel-hopping, and Woosters most certainly do not mix; I wasn't seasick, but it wouldn't have taken much provocation to get me there. I do well enough on the longer voyages, but on short distances over choppy waters my safest bet is to remain very still where I can see the scenery moving by but remain ignorant of the water. There would be much more toothsome fare at Calais in any case. But what of Jeeves? He would have breakfasted at some unholy hour and could well be famished, but here he was sitting because I told him to sit.

"You know I can't swallow so much as a biscuit on these things, Jeeves, but you should by all means make free of the lunching facilities if you so desire," I offered, hoping it sounded enough like the choice was truly his and not 'go away and eat something.'

"Thank you, sir, but there is a particularly fine _brasserie_ at our port of destination I would be eager to visit, if you are amenable."

"Topping notion," I said, envisioning a leisurely luncheon on some sun-dappled terrace, enjoying the company and the slight relaxation of the feudal rules that came with being strangers in a strange land, united in a common odyssey. But then I frowned again. Given a choice of companions with whom to mangle a spot of _soupe à l'oignon_ or similar, I doubted I would be first on the list if I didn't pay for the privilege. How could I ever know if anything he did was done because he wanted it, and not because I commanded it? Even mangling said _soupe_ in his chosen location depended on the young master's amenability.

"Jeeves," I said, because I found myself unable not to, "if I asked you to do something that went against all your principles, you wouldn't just up and do it, would you?"

He raised a fractional eyebrow. "It would depend upon the request, sir, and the circumstances."

"Oh, nothing life or death. Something that wouldn't make one whit of difference to anyone but me. And I suppose you. But that coming from a more cunning chap than this Wooster, might seem to carry a bit of an 'or else' on the end of it."

I watched him swallow the admittedly ill-turned phrasing. "If I may speak frankly, sir?"

If he felt he couldn't even say what he really thought without my leave, dash it, what hope would there ever be? "I think that question stopped being a necessary one some long while ago," I said.

He registered an instant of surprise, I think, possibly at the statement itself, or possibly at my tone, which might've come over a bit more affectionate than I'd really intended. But I couldn't judge it, because it flickered away as quickly as it had come on. "Then quite frankly, sir, if retaining my situation depended upon my agreement to something so counter to my principles, it would lose a great deal of that which engenders my desire to retain it. What is it you would ask of me, sir?"

Oh. He'd thought I was building up to asking him to do some awful thing. I couldn't even imagine what he could be thinking. "Oh, nothing at all, Jeeves. It was simply a—" I borrowed his word— "a theoretical. Just sort of...well, one wouldn't want to abuse one's position."

"I have never known you to, sir."

"Not even when I wear purple socks?" I asked, feeling the thing needed a bit of lightening-up.

"Trivialities, sir," Jeeves said, betraying no amusement. "While my views on matters of dress are somewhat conservative, purple socks are your right if you wish to wear them, and at the end of the day do not alter my opinion of your character. It is only the opinions of others that cause me to give such advice at all."

I chewed that over a bit, and I thought I grasped his meaning. "You mean supposing purple socks, or whatever thing I'm wearing that you object to, really are not so natty as I think and actually make me look a great fool— supposing, mind you. I'm not saying they do. But supposing I did look a great fool, you mean you don't like to think of passers-by looking at me and thinking 'good heavens, is his man colour-blind?'"

"Precisely so, sir."

"But Jeeves, anyone who matters knows what a paragon you are. My pals place bets on how long I'll get to keep a hat you don't like, and I'm sure your compatriots well know that you despair of ever breaking me of my sartorial whims. Still, now I know the purity of your motives, I shall endeavour to take these things more to heart."

It was a good air-clearing sort of talk, if not the precise air I wanted cleared. At least it gave me a little window into the Jeevesian mind. Only in very dark moments did I ever truly believe he applied the iron fist to my wardrobe out of finding me lacking, but it was still nice to hear that my views on What the Well-Dressed Gentleman Is Wearing did not affect whatever little esteem he managed to hold me in. Having me dressed what he thought was properly was a point of pride for him. He no more wanted the general public to think I looked a right ass than an artist wants the latest masterpiece to get the bird from the critics.

Less happily, however, I had also become convinced beyond the shadow of a d. that a 'kiss me, Jeeves' request could not be made. I was glad, of course, that he wouldn't do it just to stay employed, but it also meant that packing of bags and presenting of portfolios would accompany his refusal. If ever there were to be such a request made between us, it could only be 'kiss me, Bertram.'

I could just about count on my fingers the times I'd heard him say my given name, invariably sandwiched between a 'Mr' and a 'Wooster,' and usually in the course of making some arrangement or reading a message. But the thought of him properly calling me that was another matter entirely, and caused a shivering little thrill I was unable to stop.

"Are you cold, sir?" Jeeves asked, probably poised to go about rounding up overcoats and blankets if need be.

"A draught or something," I lied. "It's nothing." For nothing was precisely what would ever come of this newfound daffiness for my personal gentleman's gentleman. I was no more suited a suitor than East-End waitresses, in terms of intellectual oomph. There was also the obvious problem of proclivities, i.e. the recently-discovered ones of mine that I sincerely doubted Jeeves shared.

With a sigh, I took up the book I'd brought along, frowning at it. Sherlock Holmes, not precisely the highest-brow stuff, but at least Jeeves couldn't look too far down his nose at it. I'd loved the tales all my life, and Jeeves in no small way reminded me of the great detective. I was no Watson, of course. He would certainly never claim to be lost without me or call me 'my dear Wooster.'

Holmes and Watson were currently inspecting a hat, from which Holmes had somehow worked out every detail of the owner's life, even down to a cooling of the softer feelings on the part of the chap's missus. 'This hat has not been brushed for weeks,' Holmes's speech ran. 'When I see you, my dear Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's affection.'

Would that the studious brushing of hats could be any true scale on which to judge affection! The state of my own headwear would evidence hitherto unseen depths of adoration. I snapped the book shut in annoyance, and Jeeves began to fold the newspaper he'd opened. His whims placed aside in case mine needed attending, I thought again, a trifle guiltily. But wasn't it the order of things? If I told him not to wait on me any more, he'd consider himself sacked. "As you were, Jeeves," I said, waving him off. "I'd simply forgotten that reading is no more advisable for me than biscuits." For as it happened, I was feeling a bit sloshy about the tum.

"A remedy could be easily procured, sir, if you wish it," Jeeves said.

"No, it's not so bad. I think I'd just better not try to read." I laid the book aside, and Jeeves picked it up and inspected it. "Have at it if you like, old thing. It's got the newer ones in as well. Complete edition. Though I know it's not the sort of thing you usually go in for," I added, lest he be insulted by the implication.

"On the contrary, sir. I have long found Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work to be both entertaining and stimulating."

"You probably work it all out before Holmes does," I said. "You could give him a run for his money."

"It is kind of you to say so, sir," he said, ever the soul of humility. "If it would please you, some excerpt could be read aloud."

Only twice had Jeeves ever read anything aloud to me for entertainment purposes, and on both occasions I had been miserably under the weather. I suppose sea-sickness counted in his estimation, and I certainly wasn't going to turn it down. When one has been read to by Jeeves, it's a bit of a wrench to go back to doing it for oneself. He doesn't go so far as to 'do the voices,' as I used to urge Nannie Pete to do, but he does give all the _dramatis personae_ some little uniqueness so you know who's speaking, and adds in all the ups and downs and pauses-for-effect to put the listener right into the thick of the action.

He favoured me with a reading of 'The Three Garridebs,' I think because he had not read it himself. I think I'd read it in The Strand when it had first come round a few years back, but not since, and I remembered little enough to remain in suspense. I'd entirely forgot the bit with the shooting, in fact, and gasped when it happened. Then he came to a bit that tugged keenly at the heart-strings. After Watson is shot, Holmes biffs the other chappie over the head with a revolver and flies to Watson's side.

"'You're not hurt, Watson?'" Jeeves read, putting the warranted amound of concern into it, the like of which I'd never heard out of either him or Holmes. "'For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!'"

And then he narrated as Watson, "'It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.'"

And, well, I say. It wasn't just the heart-strings tugged, but the whole assemblage of the inner Wooster workings, because if that wasn't exactly the sort of glimpse I'd like to catch of Jeeves's heart, I didn't know what was.

I didn't quite catch the rest of the tale, well-performed though I'm sure it was, because my imagination was busily inventing a thousand little stories of its own. I would be gravely ill, perhaps, not just one of these trifling little colds, and through my fevered delirium I would feel him clasp my hand, hear him call me by my name and beg me not to go popping off just yet. Or I could be wounded in a burglary of some sort, as an innocent bystander, of course, not as the burglar. A riding accident, a fire, a car crash, the possibilities were endless.

But knowing my luck, I'd probably just end up dying, or else Jeeves would look on the sorry scene, raise an eyebrow and say, 'Oh, good heavens, sir, you seem to have had your head blown off,' and no glimpses of hearts to be had. Even when the master himself arranged bouts of mortal peril to help estranged lovers along, they seldom went entirely as planned. He had the brains to adapt the scheme when it all went pear-shaped, but I most certainly did not.

"What was that, Jeeves?" I asked, noticing he was looking at me in an expectant way, and possibly had been for some time.

"I was enquiring, sir, as to whether you wished to hear another."

I was in no humour to chance hearing any more of great hearts. "No, Jeeves, thank you." But I also had a unique opportunity fallen upon my lap, because for once Jeeves and I had read the same book, or part of it, anyway.

It wasn't the stuff of great philosophical quandary, of course, but it would do. If he was ever to think of me as not—what had he called me, mentally negligible?—as not that, or whatever he'd said, I would have to put forth no small effort. For truly, I know I haven't got half the brains given to some woodland creatures, but I've learnt to make do with what I've got, and I really had the perfect bit of philosophy to query about. "I wonder, Jeeves, as one who makes such close study of the psychology of individuals, if you think that all cold masks conceal great hearts."

"Most assuredly not, sir," he said without hesitation. "In some cases a cold mask is no mask at all, or a warm and amiable countenance may in fact be laid over malice and ill intent."

The idea of these things, I think, is to parry back with something, but came up empty, because the only thought I could come up with was that if one couldn't apply it to everyone, at least Jeeves must have a great heart under there somewhere. There are things one simply cannot say to one's valet, however faithful and close a confidant he has become. So as not to simply sit dumbly, I fell back on the tried-and-true habit of a joke. "And here I was hoping Aunt Agatha had some shred of humanity beneath all that taffeta."

"Mrs Gregson, I fear, presents herself much as she truly is, sir."

A horn sounded, signalling that we were about to reach our port, and so ended Bertram's sorry attempt at a brainy discussion.

We returned to our unused compartment to retrieve our worldly goods. I was feeling distinctly grimy by this point, and attempted to freshen up in the tiny lavatory, which appeared to have been built with an elf as the model for an average-sized passenger.

"The delights of Paris will have to delight themselves for a bit," I declared, locked in a bootless struggle against the minuscule and several-feet-too-low mirror to reapply the tie I'd removed in the course of the freshenings. "For as soon as we step into that house, I am having a very long and thorough soak." Then, addressing the tie, I said, "Blast it!" I turned to Jeeves, hands thrown up in frustration. "Do you mind, Jeeves? I can't see a bally thing."

It was both the best and worst idea I had had in days. In normal circs I'm quite capable of windsoring my own neckwear, so I'd rather forgotten how very very close a chap has to stand to do it for you, and the way fingers, of necessity, tend to brush against the neck. Luckily, Jeeves is dashed quick on the draw when it comes to ties, so the thing was done before I had a chance to get too uncomfortable.

Unbidden, a memory bubbled up, that of Stinker always saying he was hopeless at bow-ties and having me do it for him whenever evening costume was required. As I am not and never have been a valet, I couldn't do it standing in front of him and had usually ended up in some oddish contortion reaching around him from behind. I suspected I understood his reasons quite a bit better now. At least Jeeves had his back turned and was pottering about with the cases when the remembrance doubtless clouded the Wooster brow, so I was able to be my cheerful self again by the time he could see me. I wondered if this was some sort of...what was it? "What's the thing those Hinduists are always on about, Jeeves? Sort of their do-unto-others bit, only it's what you've done gets done to you?"

"You are referring, I believe, to the belief in the concept of Karma, sir."

"That's the one!" I said, though it was a hollow triumph, for it only allowed me to call it by its right name. The fact remained that I rather felt I was being repaid, even punished, in Karma for unwittingly sticking Stinker into the unrequited l. posish.

"Was there any particular reason you required the term, sir?"

"No," I lied. I was doing a good bit of that lately. If this Karma gag was the real thing, I supposed I could be expecting Jeeves to start lying right back to me soon. "You know how my mind wanders, Jeeves," I said, now forced to extemporise. "I was just wondering if it's as real as all that, why the Honorias and Madelines of the world don't have a chap every fortnight saying 'of course I'll marry you!' without so much as a handshake." And really, why didn't they?

"The concept has been diluted from its Eastern roots and is espoused more as an encouragement for good behaviour, sir, as much as a threat of direct retribution."

"You don't sound as though you think it holds much water," I said.

"It puts one in danger, sir, of performing apparently altruistic acts with avaricious motives at heart."

"Masks and malice again, then?"

"Indeed, sir," he said, and I thought I detected a note of pride.

Better than my first go, then, not that I could even nearly count myself a Socrates. It wasn't that I was trying to mould myself; I knew better than that. I saw it more as learning to play a new instrument, but one that Jeeves would like much better than the banjolele. He might never love me, but the less chance I gave him to eventually find me too tiresome and fluffheaded to hang around, the better.

Calais welcomed us into its fold, as did Jeeves's brasserie, which was every bit worth the wait. Obviously, it wasn't Jeeves's brasserie—strictly speaking it appeared to belong to someone named Arnaud—but it was the one he had mentioned. It was a charming seaside affair, as so many things in Calais are, with the envisioned charming sun-dappled terrace and charmingly tiny tables. It was more or less impossible to stop our knees brushing together if we did anything but sit ramrod-straight, and I admit I took advantage of it. Once I got over the slight panic and thrill of Jeeves not moving away every time it happened—for where would he have moved to?—it was jolly nice. Relaxed and comfortable, you know.

I have been known to kick when presented with the prospect of travel, but I wondered now if I wouldn't be wanting to do a good sight more of it. When travelling, you see, one is thrown into these transient lunchings where it would be bally stupid not to strap on the nosebag right alongside Jeeves like a pair of old chums. Well, it seemed bally stupid to me, anyway.

It hadn't, in the beginning, seemed bally stupid or even at all odd to Jeeves on our first voyage from home, which had been a mishap-fraught journey to the wilds of Scotland for some binge Oofy Prosser had been hosting in a castle. I've never actually been clear on whether he owned it, hired it, borrowed it, or simply broken in, but that was and still is neither here nor there.

To make a long story short, we'd found ourselves in Edinburgh for several hours due to some railway accident involving pigs, and as one does around midday, I'd wanted a spot of sustenance, so I'd put out the idea of lunching at the Balmoral.

What I'd said, in fact, was, 'What do you say to lunching at the Balmoral, Jeeves?' in which I thought the fact that I meant for him to come along was pretty well apparent. But he'd simply very-good-sir'd me and intimated he'd be at the Duck and Tricycle or someplace similarly pubbish-sounding.

I'd rather missed the point that he'd missed my point and simply thought he was disagreeing with my choice of establishment. 'Well, I'd like something rather more substantial than can be had in a pub,' I'd protested. 'Lord only knows how long we're going to be stranded here.'

What followed was an exchange that would not have been out of place in a stage act, Jeeves thinking we were going separate places and self thinking we were going to the same place until I'd finally got my point across, to which he'd responded stiffly, 'It would hardly be proper, sir.'

To which I'd said, 'Oh, hang proper, I'm practically dead from hunger and stuck in bally Edinburgh because of pigs,' and fairly dragged him into the first vaguely restaurant-like estab. in seeing distance. He'd been stiff and proper through the whole thing, but from then on there'd got to be sort of an understanding that when en route anywhere, we stuck together as brothers-in-arms on matters of dining.

Jeeves had gradually relaxed his ideas of what was and was not proper, of course, even going so far as to mangle a bit of lunch or dinner with me at home now and then, because it's really dashed sad to have a solitary meal when you could be having one in good company.

I think he viewed these times as a temporary break in his employment, or else I doubt he'd ever have brought himself round to the idea. None of his predecessors have been granted this supposed privilege, but none of them were Jeeves, and he'd since joined me in all manner of things.

Except, of course, this newest thing I wished he'd join me in, which was why I found myself wistfully gazing at a couple who were clearly potty for each other and staring soppily into each other's eyes, sitting closer together even than the table required. I wondered aloud if they might belong to the car still bearing the 'just married' regalia that was parked out front, and I think I gave Jeeves the wrong impression with all the wistfulness. He got the same look in his eye I'd seen when I'd declared I was going to marry Bobbie Wickham.

"It is certainly possible, sir," Jeeves frosted in answer to my q.

"Oh, don't look so worried," I said. "I was only thinking it's a jolly good thing there's some people matrimony seems to agree with." And, I added silently, wishing that I could stare at you like that. "Takes the burden off the rest of us, what?"

"The burden, sir?"

"You know, the future of England and all. Better them than me. All other things being equal, I'd make a perfectly rotten father."

"You do yourself an injustice, sir." Jeeves was employing a tone he normally reserved for fairly dire circs in which the wounded Wooster pride needed soothing for some reason. "Many a child would be glad of a father of so generous a spirit and forgiving a nature as yours."

"Why, Jeeves," I said, not without a bit of tightness about the throat, because he's not the sort to go flinging praise about willy-nilly when there's no game afoot. In fact, most of the good things he's said about me I've either overheard or been told by someone else. "I think that's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said about me." It certainly beat 'mentally negligible' by a good few laps.

"I was merely stating what I believe to be fact, sir," he said, looking at something sort of to the left of me.

"Well, thank you, then, but the poor blighters will just have to make do with other fathers. What was it you said I am, a natural bachelor?"

"I believe it was something to that effect, sir."

"And right you were, too, by Jove. I can count on one hand the people I can stand for more than a few weeks at the outside, to say nothing of a lifetime, and they're either related to me or I couldn't marry them if I wanted to." He had to know he was among that lot, that he'd always been, all romantic stirrings aside. I only hoped I'd managed to say it without saying too much. He didn't immediately seem to take it amiss, so I counted it a success.

Paris beckoned, and it was a well-fed and increasingly sleepy Bertram who was poured onto the train that would be the last leg of our journey. I kept the eyes open long enough to listen to Jeeves make a few culturally minded suggestions for Parisian activities and a thinly veiled request for a day or two in Brittany. I had little interest in a load of big rocks when I could see quite the same thing back in Blighty, but remote locales alongside Jeeves had taken on a whole new allure for me and I agreed to the side-trip with some vigour.

I dozed most of the way there, only cracking an eye open occasionally in a vague and bleary way to ensure I hadn't been saying something horrifying in my sleep before shutting it firmly again. In one of these instances, I noticed Jeeves had cracked open my Sherlock Holmes again, which made me smile a bit. On another, I noticed him inspecting the postcard I'd been using to mark my place in it. It was one he'd sent me on his last holiday, actually, and had been easily at hand when I'd needed a bookmark. It was a bit funny that Jeeves was reading it, but as he'd written the thing it wasn't as though he was snooping through my letters. I was nowhere near the state of wakefulness needed to puzzle much over it. On a third, he wasn't there at all. The final time, he purposely woke me, as the arrival was at last upon us.

The townhouse was a nice little affair, nestled in a quiet _rue_ near the Jardin des Plantes. I would have called it an end-terrace, but I don't know how the French would have it other than _maison._ Jeeves remembered my request for an immediate bath and had me in one in a trice. He left me to soak to my heart's content, making noises about inspecting the kitchen, and somehow reappeared at the precise instant I was ready to get out. I often wondered how he did it, how he sensed these things, but I knew asking him about it would get me no more of an answer than I'd given myself: that it was all part of his particular magic.

Ordinarily on arrival in a new city, I'm champing at the bit to go straight out and sample its delights. But this night I was not, partly because I simply lacked the energy for any delight-sampling, and partly because I wasn't keen to be where Jeeves was not. He eyebrowed at me when I told him not to bother with the evening clothes, but did as I asked.

"You will be dining in this evening, then, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, Jeeves, I find myself still _un peu fatigué_ from the journey and not equal to much revelry."

"Very good, sir," he said, and dashed if there wasn't a bit of the long-suffering to it.

"Do you object, Jeeves, to my proposed activities, or rather lack thereof?"

"Not at all, sir. It is merely that whomever Mr Brittingham engaged to ready the household for habitation made a number of oversights which I had planned to spend the evening correcting."

Not dusted and polished to his exacting standards, he meant. I knew for a fact he would wash every bit of crockery and cutlery in the place before allowing any of it to meet with so much as a pat of butter. Oh. That'd be a lot of work for him, wouldn't it, just to get my dinner. It was a rum thing, suddenly realising how much trouble I put him to probably several times a day. I'd never given it a thought before, and I suppose I wasn't meant to, but now that the idea of his getting fed up with me was a doubly unhappy one, I must say it caused concern.

"Well, if I'll be in the way...." Of course he'd never tell me I'd be in the way, but it was rather telling that he wasn't now saying I wouldn't. And it was perfectly possible he'd just had quite enough of Woosters for one day. "All right, then, shove me into the soup-and-fish and I'll be off. The Pomme d'Or a few streets over's got a guest arrangement with the Drones; I'll mangle a spot of something there and leave you to it."

"Very good, sir," he said a trifle shortly, and took himself off to the wardrobe so swiftly I wondered if that hadn't been the right answer either, but I couldn't very well change my mind a third time, so it was into the costume and out the door.

For an unwanted evening out, it was pleasant enough. Nothing on the Drones, where you can't go two steps without tripping over some pal or other, but I did chance across old Goopy Lancaster, unseen seen since we were both in Eton collars. He'd been admitted to some Parisian art academy and never heard from again, until now, of course. As it turned out, he hadn't stuck even a whole term at the art school before striking out on his own and was making quite the name for himself as some sort of avant-garde photographer. He introduced me round and I found my French vocabulary much expanded by the time we all stumbled out into the night, as half of these chaps couldn't be troubled to speak the King's E. for my benefit.

Barring the language differences, the evening's entertainments wouldn't have been out of place in the annals of my youth. There was even a tearing run from some _gendarmes_ when a chap called Loïc got it in his head to shimmy up a flagpole and pinch the ornament atop. Perhaps it was simply the weariness of travel, or the fact that I hadn't wanted to be out and about at all, but the merriment left me distinctly lukewarm and actually made me feel dashed old.

"Ils font beaucoup comme ça?" I asked either an Alec or an Alex, who was the only one not cheerfully egging on the ornament purloinment. He was a quiet sort who'd spent most of the past couple of hours scribbling away in a little book. Not a notebook, you understand, a book. The cover was pasted over with magazine clippings, but I'd seen that there were words already printed on the pages. A rum thing, but Goopy had gone on with some vigour about selling a photograph of a sausage entitled 'Vive la Révolution' for some exorbitant sum, so it wasn't terribly surprising.

"Something of the sort nearly every night," he said without the faintest trace of Frenchness.

"You're not French!"

"No, I was born in Liverpool. My mum's French, though. It's a bit of a game to see who can work it out."

"Hardly sporting. I can barely hold a conversation in French, let alone pick out accents. Plus you didn't say much."

"It gets tiresome."

"Talking?"

"Small talk. How's the weather, do you know Lord Whatsit. I'd rather wait for a real conversation."

"Oh," I said, feeling mentally quite negligible. "Sorry."

"Don't worry. I do realise it's sometimes necessary if you'd like to know someone." He flashed me a very winning and toothy smile and pushed his thick glasses up atop his head. The effect was that of suddenly seeing an entirely different person, a bookish mouse transformed into a laddish rake. "You're Tom's friend from school, aren't you?"

"Tom?" It took me a moment to work out he meant Goopy. "Oh, yes."

"What awful sort of thing do you have to do to end up being called Goopy?"

"I don't know. He was just sort of...Goopy."

"And what was yours?"

"Well, Bertie, actually," I said, seeing no need to reveal that in the early days I'd just as often been called The Bungler, as I'd happily made enough of a blood of myself to shake it. "You come off easy when you've got one sort of built in."

"So why not Tom?"

"There already was a Tom. There weren't any Berties."

"Hm. I was at this frightful place down in Aix where we all had to call one another by our surnames, so I never really got one. I started introducing myself as Alec simply because it's horrifying to listen to a Frenchman try to say my given name at all, besides which it's frightful even said properly."

"Oh?"

"Aloysius," he said, with rather a lemon-biting sound to it.

"Oh dear. I suppose I'd come up with something else as well. And you may be lucky you weren't at Eton. I'm almost positive you'd have been Wishy, or possibly Washy, if you were a bit wishy-washy."

"I am a bit wishy-washy, but in the best way possible," he said with another of these charming grins. I wasn't so much charmed by them as aware that I was clearly meant to be charmed, if that makes any sense. I didn't get to ask what was the best way to be wishy-washy, because it was about this time that the police whistle sounded and we all had to leg it. This Alec character did the oddest thing, once we were safely round the corner: he shoved what I assumed was his card into my front pocket, patted it, and said, "I'll be seeing you," before letting loose a sort of giggle and taking himself off down an alley.

Well, I thought with a shrug before ankling towards the home away from home, now I knew someone in Paris, even if he did seem an oddish sort of bird.

The hour was late indeed, and all was quiet when I returned. Jeeves, by an agreement made some time ago, does not await my return past a certain hour, as once it gets to be about three or so, I either fall directly into bed or make such a row returning that he'll be woken and come to my aid. I'd only overindulged slightly, so it was the former sort of late evening. I could barely muster the drive to pull on the nightwear before I was dead to the world.

"Did you mean to keep this, sir?" Jeeves asked on the morrow, once I'd had my brain-tingling restorative and was well into the eggs and b. He held last night's jacket in one hand and a red bit of paper in the other, which he brandished in question.

I couldn't remember coming into any red bits of paper. "Very possibly. What is it?"

"It appears to be an address, sir."

"Oh. That must be Alec's."

"Alec, sir?"

"Cartwright, I think it was. I rather thought it would've been a card. He shoved it in my pocket once the _gendarmes_ had given up."

"An eventful evening, then, sir?" I thought I detected a hint of disapproval.

I explained about Goopy, Loïc, and the flagpole, and did not hold back on the subj. of feeling rather elderly about the whole affair and possibly having lost my taste for such things.

"If you are elderly, sir, than I am surely at death's door," Jeeves said, just one of those dry things he says sometimes that don't really mean anything except as his version of a joke, but it struck fear into the Wooster heart.

What on earth _would_ I do when that time came? What about when I really was old and infirm, with no children to look after me? My sister's children might, perhaps, if they thought they'd get my money at the end, since Rebecca was more than a decade older and not likely to outlive me. I barely knew the girls, had only ever met one of them in person when they'd shipped over to see me receive the Oxford sheepskin, and mostly left it up to Jeeves to keep track of when it was time to send a birthday card or similar. What a way to go, with uncaring relations just counting down the days! Good god.

"Sir? Are you well? You have gone quite pale."

"Provided some scheming pal doesn't get me killed climbing out windows, Jeeves, I'm going to be very old one day," I said with a tremor.

"That is a long while off yet, sir. I would not trouble yourself with it."

"No, Jeeves, you don't understand. One day you really will be at death's door, or at least retire, provided you can actually stand me for another forty-odd years and don't meet the girl of your dreams before that. The girl of my dreams is a nonexistent thing, as you know, ergo no loving children to look after me, ergo living out my last days amongst nieces wishing I'd just go and pop off already so they can claim their inheritance." It was a heavy notion so early in the morning, but one cannot always choose the moments at which these things rear their heads. "I've got half a mind to catch the next boat to India so I can get on my way to becoming their favourite uncle and have a fighting chance they'll actually want to look after me."

"Sir," Jeeves said, positively dripping with concern (for him, anyway), "I will remain with you as long as I am able. When the time comes that I—" he seemed to swallow— "that I cannot, I will undoubtedly have spent considerable time and effort ensuring that my absence will be felt as little as possible." There was no way to tell him that his absence could never go unfelt. "It would not be my place to object if you wish to know your nieces better, but you would do both them and yourself a disservice, sir, if you did it for any other reason than the spirit of family."

He was right, of course. Endearing myself to them so they'd look after me was no better than them looking after me for the payoff at the end. The bigger relief of the thing, though, was to hear that he still considered himself signed up for life. I did a bit of sighing and a bit of eye-opening and shutting, and finally all I could do was look at him and say, "You truly are singular, Jeeves." I doubt the roil of emotions within made me anything but an open book with all that longing laid bare for the reading. I looked away as quickly as I could.

"Sir," Jeeves said, crouching down at the bedside, and then more softly, "Ber—"

The doorbell rang. The blasted bally bloody stupid be-damned doorbell rang. Just when my heart had all but stopped because Jeeves had almost certainly been about to call me— well, it was uncertain whether it would've been Bertie or Bertram, but he'd never done either, never, not even in the course of some disguised ruse. And the doorbell had to go and ring. It was all over, and he was up like a shot, instantly the perfect statuesque paragon once again.

"Who could it be at this hour?" I asked weakly.

"The piano tuner, I expect, sir," Jeeves said, and biffed off to answer it as though the last few minutes had never existed.

I gaped after him, breakfast forgotten, trying to convince myself that such a moment had not been snatched out from under me. His having been about to say something, anything, other than my name was far preferable to having this perpetual _almost_ just hanging there. Bermuda? Beryllium? I'd misheard, and it had been the beginning of a _perhaps_? Yes, perhaps. He used that word a lot. Just a perhaps with some bit of wisdom tacked onto the end, nothing more.


	3. A Little Fluter

**3\. A Little Flutter**

****I hadn't known the piano needed tuning, but apparently it was one of those oversights Jeeves had spoken of, and it needed a good deal more than tuning if all the banging-about below me was anything to go by. Jeeves had to rush back and forth between my bathing and dressing and the tuner chappies, so I had no chance to ask him what he'd been about to say.

By the time there was a chance, I found I couldn't screw up the courage, because Jeeves was acting as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. So there must've been nothing. Just the Wooster imagination running rampant under the influence of what was likely vain hope to see any hint of what I wished would be there.

"I chanced to meet an acquaintance of yours while at the market, sir," Jeeves informed me once I'd given the piano-tuning my seal of approval. "Miss Marion Wardour."

"Marion? What's she doing here?" Marion, if you remember, was the singer pal of mine who'd once been the unfortunate object of my cousins Claude and Eustace's courtship attempts and only escaped them through Jeeves's cunning.

"She gave me to understand that she has taken an engagement at the Petit George, sir."

"Well, good for her!" I said with enthusiasm I did not truly feel, but Jeeves was looking standoffish and clearly issuing a silent _nolle prosequi_ on continuing our earlier discussion. "Did she say where she was lodging?"

"No, sir, but she indicated an intention to call here this evening. She intimated that she had some problem on which she was hoping for advice."

"You mean she's really coming to see you." I wasn't troubled by it; I'm well used to such things. "No matter, I'll be glad to see her anyway. She's a good egg, Marion. Hasn't got her head full of mad notions like most females." Meaning she'd spent a great deal of time in my company without mistaking my friendly overtures for romantic ones.

"Indeed, sir. She seems a sensible young lady."

"And I dare say we'll get a good table at the Petit George out of the deal. I've never heard of it, but I'm sure it's positively dripping with Parisian culture."

"So I have heard, sir." Jeeves sounded as though I'd just suggested strolling about town in a yellow hat.

"It sounds as though you don't like whatever you've heard, Jeeves," I said, a trifle put out. I'd been counting on Jeeves's company for these sorts of things and looking forward to the prospect. "You haven't got to come if you think it beneath you, but I thought you enjoyed going out on the town in New York."

"I did, sir, very much so. I am simply concerned that you might find the particular...culture at the establishment in question displeasing."

"What rot, Jeeves. I'm sure I've seen worse than whatever they've got there."

"Very good, sir." But it sounded rather more like 'it's your funeral, sir.'

Marion actually said the same sort of thing when I suggested taking in her performance, while exchanging a significant glance with Jeeves, no less! "I think you'd have a better time if you came to the party I'm performing at on Friday, Bertie," she said hedgily.

"Here, now!" I protested. "That makes two votes against Bertram stepping foot in this place, plus one significant glance. What on earth am I going to find so horrible?"

"It's in Montmartre, Bertie," Marion said. "I'm not sure you understand—"

"I'm not some babe in the woods, you know," I rather snapped. "I do have some idea of what I can expect to find. It's as though the both of you think a bit of depravity will have me fainting on sofas. I do only live about three hops from Piccadilly, which I've walked through at some rather odd hours. I have seen a thing or two, and seeing another thing or two will not kill me. I will attend this performance with bells on, this very evening, and that's the final word."

Marion shrugged and Jeeves looked soupy, but neither protested further. Marion's problem, by the by, was one I've often had. To wit, somebody wanted to marry her, and she wanted none of it. The chap apparently didn't think 'no' or even 'not if you were the last chap on earth' satisfactory answers. Jeeves promised to give it his best consideration, but I saw a bally obvious solution staring us right in the face.

"Why can't you just pretend to be engaged to someone else?" I asked.

"Well, that might work," she said. "But who? I can't just make somebody up; he won't take my word for it."

"I suppose I could do it," I said warily.

"That's really sweet of you, Bertie, but Renaud's a big man. If it came to blows he'd snap you in half. It'd have to be someone more Jeeves's size."

And well, Jeeves was precisely Jeeves's size, and the conclusion was eventually reached that it should be Jeeves himself, since his playing the part removed the danger that she might just end up with another chap trying to marry her. We were assured there was no danger of meeting him in the night club, as he frowned on such things and wanted to 'take her away from all that.' Instead we would go in a few days to a dinner at his house she'd been vainly attempting to oil out of.

Jeeves in eveningwear is a rare privilege and a sight to behold, and I couldn't help smiling at him in the mirror as he gave a few last brushes to my jacket. "Not very bohemian, but I think we cut a nice figure, what?" I said, because I couldn't very well tell him he looked the knee-jellying variety of dashing.

"One hopes, sir," he said, with the slightest of smiles in return.

I took a deep breath and screwed my courage to the sticking place. "Jeeves," I said, leaning forwards and picking at my hair a bit to disguise the bout of nerves threatening to shut me up. "This morning, before the bell rang. You were about to say something." I chanced a look at his reflection, which had turned its back and was straightening the wardrobe.

"I cannot recall, sir," he said.

"I think you were about to say 'perhaps' something?" I pressed, despite knowing I shouldn't.

"If I happen to remember it, sir, I shall make certain to inform you."

"Oh. All right." Either he honestly didn't remember or he'd thought better of it. Neither boded very well for me, but there was nothing for it.

 

I'll have to admit that despite all my argument to the contrary, I hadn't been entirely prepared for the particular section of Montmartre we were visiting. Garishly dressed folk of all descriptions milled about in the streets and poured out of bars, in every possible combination. If it had been merely witnessing some unconventional couples and a few chaps in dresses, I could indeed have stood it fine. It was the outrageously forward leering and commentary that put me off, though what little French I have does not include much of that sort of vocabulary.

"I say!" I exclaimed when what I was fairly certain was a man impersonating a woman impersonating a man called me something I think translates to 'kitten.' He only retreated when Jeeves gave him a withering glare and said something that, from what I understood of it, he would never have said in English in my hearing.

"If you would not find it troubling to take my arm, sir, I believe the worst of it will stop," Jeeves said quietly when the interloper had been dispensed.

The heart skipped a few thousand beats when I realised he meant to present the illusion that we were...well, what I wished we were. I latched on with aplomb and found myself rather sorry when it turned out there wasn't very much farther to walk.

Marion did no worse than smirk, as if to 'I-told-you-so' me, when she spied the arm-entanglement. Inside was much the same as outside, though most of the more colourful characters seemed to prefer to lend their custom elsewhere. Still, there were chaps with chaps, girls with girls, and I was stuck with a hard twist of jealousy in the gut. Here I was stepping into one of the few parts of the world where nobody would bat an eyelash at my singular attachment to my most singular man, and still powerless to betray one whit of it. If only!

But I had a more practical worry, too. "I say, is this sort of thing legal?"

"It isn't illegal," Marion said. "They don't put you away here for what you are."

"Or for where you are, I hope?"

"It's safe, Bertie," she said. I had to wonder why, of all the places in Paris where she could sing, she'd chosen this one, but I fancied it might pay rather better since not everyone might be so keen to be advertised on its stage. Marion led us to a table right in front of said stage, from which a fashionable little slip of a girl had been watching our approach, soon introduced as Lisette Monteforte. She seemed happy enough to meet me, but was a trifle cool towards Jeeves for some reason. It made a bit more sense when she asked, and he confirmed, that Jeeves was the one Marion was pretending to be engaged to. At least, it was obviously the reason; I couldn't think why she didn't like it. Perhaps she had scruples about that sort of subterfuge.

The band struck back up and dancers crowded the floor. It shouldn't have surprised me, given who appeared to be coupled with whom, that the general rules of dancing partners had gone quite merrily out the window, but I'd never seen the like and couldn't help gaping a bit.

Lisette gave me a rough poke in the arm. "Don't stare so," she said, and other than a hint of an accent, her English was probably better than mine. "It is also a sin to eat lobster."

"No, no," I assured her. "I was just thinking what a good time they were all having. You know, places like this in England, you could get two years just for going inside. But it's bally stupid. Who does it hurt, really? Nobody can help who they love."

Lisette laughed in an 'oh, bless' sort of way. "I don't think they are all in love."

"I didn't think they were," I defended. "I spoke in the broader sense of the thing. And anyway, how else do you fall in love if not by dancing and keeping company? There's the odd bit of luck when you clap eyes on somebody and say 'there, that's the one,' but I think for most it comes on rather more gradually."

This did not appear to convince her that I was not entirely dim. "If everyone saw the world as you do, Monsieur Wooster—"

"Bertie, please."

"Bertie. It would be a beautiful place." Which I think actually translated to, 'oh, you're a frightful gawd-help-us, aren't you?' given her next words. "I hate to break your illusion, but well half of the people here have not the slightest interest in each other beyond tonight, maybe tomorrow morning if it goes very well."

I blushed—how could I not—catching her meaning. "Oh. Well. I suppose you can't help who you want to...do that with either." Because, dash it, if I could, I would have put all this Jeeves business directly from my mind.

Speaking of Jeeves, through all this talk he had been sipping at his champagne and looking pensively into the middle distance, in a direction that contained nothing more interesting than a side-door and a wall. I got the rather fearful notion that perhaps his sensibilities had been the ones offended after all his concern for mine. Lisette excused herself to wish luck to Marion, and I took my opportunity.

"Jeeves," I said, and waited till he turned towards me and yes-sirred. "I don't want you to stay just because you think you ought to or I need looking after. If it's too much for you I'm sure I can get home in one piece."

"Not at all, sir," he said. "I was merely attempting to discern what I might have done to offend Miss Monteforte."

Really, that was all? "Nothing, so far as I can tell. Who knows with women? Who knows with the French? And French women? Well, I wouldn't concern yourself with it. I think she disapproves of this engagement ruse for some reason, but that's her problem. Just try to have a good time, will you, if this place really doesn't bother you? Having you staring off like that's bound to make a chap feel like inadequate company."

"You are more than adequate, sir," he said, and just for a second I thought I saw a faint inkling of a very wished-for something pass across his map, but it was gone instantly or, more likely, entirely imagined. "But if you would rather I not stay—"

"Of course I want you to stay. I wouldn't have asked you along if I was just going to send you straight back home."

At this moment, a curly-headed youth ankled up. To my surprise, he made a rather enthusiastic request to have Jeeves as a dancing partner.

Jeeves, whether he was surprised or not, missed not one beat. He rattled off a very polite refusal in French, and if hearing him speak the _langue d'amour_ so beautifully wasn't enough to cause all manner of flipping stomachs and stopping hearts, he reached over and placed his hand atop mine. The youth begged _my_ pardon and biffed off.

Possibly Jeeves took my elated shock for the ordinary sort. "My apologies, sir," he said, but did not remove his hand, warm and large and demanding every bit of willpower I had not to turn mine over and grasp it properly. "I thought it the simplest way to prevent a stream of similar and possibly less polite requests throughout the evening."

"Oh, not at all," I said weakly, loath to point out that he was still holding my hand, but I was going to have to in a moment if I didn't want to have some sort of apoplexy.

"That young man is now informing his friends that we are not likely prospects, sir. It might help matters, if it would not offend you to do so, to demonstrate some small gesture of affection rather than continue to look quite so shocked, sir."

You could've knocked me down with an f. Jeeves had just given me carte blanche to take liberties with his person. Even so, I was sure beyond a doubt that kissing him would go over none too well and only make my troubles worse— or in fact, by opposing end them. Instead, I slid a bit closer and laid my trembling free hand upon his cheek, and it was no great feat of acting to look moony about it. "Will this do?" I asked, hoping he'd put the thickness of my voice down to the smoky environs.

His eyes fluttered closed for a moment, or perhaps he just blinked. Judgment of these things rather fails when you're hoping for any sign of what you want to see. His skin was smooth, probably shaved just before we'd gone out, and I'd had to move close enough so that all the marvelous scents of him serenaded the nostrils. He caught my hand and didn't quite press it to his lips, but near enough that I could feel the near brush of them as he said, "I believe so, sir," and possibly I was a bit hoarse from all the smoke, because he sounded the same way.

I thought I would surely die, whimper, melt into a puddle, or all of the above. He couldn't have missed that my breath was coming faster and I'd probably gone scarlet, but he remained cool as a cucumber and slowly returned us to a more usual distance, which was rather a wrench for me. I hadn't even begun to recover when Lisette returned, and thanked my lucky stars that she waved us both back down before I'd stood all the way up, as I'm not sure my legs would have held me, and even if Jeeves had missed the other signs, there was one that would be irrefutable. He, however, continued to his feet. And that was my answer, wasn't it? He'd been entirely unaffected.

"I will endeavour to discover what has become of the waiter, sir," he said, indicating the empty bottle and nearly-empty glasses.

"Right ho, Jeeves," I said miserably.

Lisette blinked at me. "He calls you sir?"

"Well, yes," I said, trying to recover some crumb of my customary cheer. "It's rather the done thing. Jeeves is my valet, you see, and a bally good one at that." Only my valet, and only ever, I reminded myself, staring after him glumly. "Though I doubt I'd protest if he spent the rest of his days calling me 'oi, stupid.'"

"You are in love with him," she said. She did not ask, she did not accuse; she simply said.

The swift denial died on my lips at the rather pointed look of a girl who knows she's hit the thing on the head. Given where we were, it was rather pointless in any case. "He doesn't know, so I'll thank you to keep it to yourself."

"But of course," she said. "I have kept secrets far more dangerous."

"Thanks awfully," I sighed, but then a frightening thought struck me. "I say, it's not horribly obvious, is it?"

"Just then it was, the way you stared after him, but I would guess you don't look him in the face that way."

"I hope not."

"Men never see these things unless they want to. I would not worry."

It was cold comfort, since it meant if he wanted to see it, he would have done. "Well, good, I suppose. While we're on the subj., Lisette, don't be too hard on him about this engagement wheeze. It was really my idea to start, and we're only trying to help Marion."

"I understand that now," she said. "Marie explained to me a bit more when I was with her just now. I feared he had his own designs and we would simply exchange one Renaud for another."

"No, no, no, not at all. Jeeves seems to spend half his time getting people out of engagements. Ordinarily he'd have had some friend of mine play the part, but I barely know anyone in Paris, and certainly no one I'd leave a thing like that up to. Out of the two of us he's the less likely to be beaten to a jelly if this Renaud menace gets angry."

"He does us a great kindness."

Some things fell together just then, the way they do sometimes, though probably less often than for others: where we were, Lisette's coolness to Jeeves when she thought he might have matrimonial intentions, the 'us,' the disturbing speed with which she'd worked me out.

I goggled a bit. Lisette smiled. "I see you have arrived at the true reason for my upset. It is no secret among our friends."

"But why not just tell Renaud that?"

"We have tried. He said such depravities are exactly why she needs a good husband."

"The blighter."

"Yes." She eyed me a moment, and I could practically see a light come on over her head. "You are helping us. I am going to help you."

"Help? Help what? Help how?"

"Sh! Here he comes. Go along with whatever I say."

"What do you mean?" I asked, but Jeeves arrived, followed closely by the champagne-bearing waiter.

"I mean you're a coward!" Lisette exclaimed suddenly.

"I say!"

"I have bet Bertie fifty pounds that he has not the courage to dance with a man," Lisette informed Jeeves, looking like the cat who'd got the cream.

Good lord. She meant to give the appearance of goading me into dancing with Jeeves as a matter of honour! "It isn't that!" I said, because I had to say something to the raised Jeevesian eyebrow. "Just...it's one thing among one's friends and all in good tipsy fun, for a joke, but these chaps here? Well, I'd be leading them on, wouldn't I? I think I'd rather be out the fifty quid than have to explain that."

"Surely Monsieur Jeeves would be safe enough," said Lisette, delivering the _coup de grace_ , and I was rather torn between kissing her or throwing her out a window, had there been a window.

"Really, Lisette, that's just beyond the pale. You can't ask such a thing of a chap who might not feel he's at liberty to refuse. Which," I said, turning to Jeeves, who was looking his stuffed-froggiest, "you would be if I _were_ asking, which I am _not._ "

"You English," Lisette said with a haughty toss of her bob. "All so prudish. Wouldn't it be in good fun, as you say?"

"A Wooster never backs down from a challenge, but I fear I must buck the Code just this once," I said, pulling out the required notes and smacking them down before Lisette. I couldn't force Jeeves to dance with me, I just couldn't, no matter how I wanted it.

But to my surprise, Jeeves scooped the sterling right back up and shoved it in his pocket. He held his hand out to me. "As a matter of honour, sir, and all in good fun," he said, his expression absolutely unreadable.

I did a creditable impression of a fish out of water, gaping and spluttering. "Jeeves, really, you needn't—"

"I assume you can follow if I lead, sir?"

A bit stunned, a bit dazed, heart pounding, I took the proffered hand and let myself be escorted to the floor. "I feel like a bally girl," I muttered, even as I took up the much-desired spot in Jeeves's arms, because I did.

"I assure you, sir, you are nothing of the sort," Jeeves said, still perfectly inscrutable.

It couldn't have been a Charleston or something, where you're not obliged to stick very close, oh no. It was a slowish foxtrot and incidentally Marion's opening number, rather fittingly about somebody who's a fool to be pining the whole day through. Bingo had once told me he'd seen Jeeves dance very well indeed. I'd yet to experience it first-hand, and I'd never dreamed it would be quite _this_ first-hand, but he really was a corking dancer. I didn't even have to think about what I was doing, which was dashed fortunate because all my energy was going to remembering how to breathe and issuing stern warnings to my anatomy to behave itself.

"I'm sorry to drag you into this, Jeeves," I said, congratulating myself on not sounding too awfully breathless.

"Not at all, sir," he said, giving me an efficient little spin. "I would not see you bested by Miss Monteforte simply to avoid causing some perceived discomfort to myself."

"You...really don't mind, then?" That came out less not-too-awfully-breathless.

"I enjoy dancing, sir, and all the more for having a talented partner."

"I think that's more a compliment to you, Jeeves. I'm barely doing anything."

As if in argument he led us through a rather fancy bit of footwork. "I would have feared for my shoes had I attempted that in most cases, sir."

It was more or less the best five minutes of my life up to that point, especially the moment where I dared to fully look at him and it looked as though he was honestly enjoying himself. I would have liked to stay for six or seven more, but now that the 'bet' was dispensed, I didn't think he'd want to, and I certainly didn't want to hear that he didn't want to.

"I will have to owe you the forfeit," Lisette said when a slightly-giddy Bertram was led back to the table. "I must admit I did not think you would do it." When Jeeves wasn't looking, she winked at me, and I mouthed a silent 'thank you.'

"Mere extortion, was it?" I said cheerily, for even if that dance was all I would ever have, at least I'd had it. "Don't worry, I never let a lady pay for anything." Maybe Jeeves would see that for what it claimed to be, or maybe he'd catch the hint that I'd dance with him for nothing, but I found other places to look for several minutes after I said it in case it was the latter and he wasn't pleased.

I offered Marion the congratulatory attagirl when she came off the stage. "Shouldn't I be saying that to you?" she asked under her breath, with a sly grin that told me the goings-on had in no way escaped her.

"Blame your conniving _copine_ for that, old thing," I said, glancing over to make sure Jeeves was still out of earshot even for our lowered voices. "She's got a funny idea of 'helping.'"

"It got you a dance, didn't it?"

"Oh, good lord. You know too, don't you?"

"I know _you_ , Bertie. Oh, don't look like that. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"A whole load of chaps in wigs and robes would beg to differ."

"Well, they're asses. I think you're perfectly gorgeous together."

"Doesn't matter," I sighed. "This was a unique event, not to be repeated."

"Oh, Bertie," she said, folding me against her voluminous bosom. "Anyone lucky enough to be loved by you is a complete fool not to return it."

"Sometimes one just can't," I said, thinking of poor Stinker.

"I know that." She patted my cheek. "You think I hung around you for weeks just because you're such great fun?"

"Well. Er, yes?"

She laughed. "The one time I wished a man _would_ try to look down my dress and you never even had to try not to."

"I say! Do you mean—"

"I mean," she said with a wistful s. "I thought, I could marry him, shut my mother up, and he wouldn't make me give up my career."

"I never knew. I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Sad at the time, but I never would've found—" she stopped herself.

"Lisette already told me. Well, I sort of worked it out, and she told me I was right. She makes you happy?"

"Of course I do," said a third voice. I wheeled round to see Lisette, Jeeves a few steps behind her. I moved aside to cede her rightful place.

Another happy couple, and I didn't really think I could stand it just now. "Well, I think we'll leave you ladies to it. Best be off home before I get egged into any more bets, eh, Jeeves?"

"Indeed, sir," he said, handing me the old hat and stick and betraying not one morsel of what he might be thinking.

I followed him out and into a cab, as the trains were no longer running, removing the question I'd been pondering of whether I ought to take his arm again. I had to pause at the door to allow a few gaily dressed ladies (at least I think they were ladies) past, and turning as I did so, I caught sight of the curly-haired youth who'd wanted to dance with Jeeves, latched in the close embrace of a dance with none other than the oddish Alec Cartwright of yestereen. I didn't precisely have it in me to be surprised, but I hastened out before he could see me.

"Did you know," I asked en route, lacking for any better conversation, "that Marion once held matrimonial hopes for me?"

"I confess I did, sir, but as you seemed both oblivious to and unmoved by her advances, I thought informing you would only cause distress," Jeeves said.

"And right you were, Jeeves. I only regret any pain I might've caused." I seemed to be learning about a fair bit of it lately.

"I dare say the lady thinks of it but little, sir, given her present happiness in love."

"I might've known you'd work it out."

"I eventually concluded that Miss Monteforte's initial coolness toward me could have but one motivation."

"Quite right. She warmed right up when I told her you had no real designs."

We fetched up at the house and adjourned within. Away from prying eyes and ears, I felt rather uneasy, fearing I might come to know Jeeves's true opinion on this dancing business, and that it would not be good. But he acted as though there was nothing amiss, so I gave the old college at same.

I was pyjamaed and bedded down when I realised I was feeling a bit peckish. No reason to trouble Jeeves, I thought as I noted the closed door across the hall, particularly after the evening's events. I certainly possessed skill enough to slap some cheese onto a bit of bread.

Thinking Jeeves was asleep, it was a bit startling to find him seated at the kitchen table, still in eveningwear minus the jacket. I let forth a not-unmanly 'gaaah,' hand on heart as I jumped out of my skin. "I thought you'd gone to bed," I gasped, waving him back to his seat.

"I found myself rather alert, sir, so I thought to make use of the time." He got up anyway and stopped my rummaging through the pantry just as I'd laid hands on a baguette. "Allow me, sir."

"Really, Jeeves, I think I can whack a sandwich together. Don't trouble yourself."

"As you are so fond of saying when I have been absent, sir, they are better when I make them for you."

Thus outwitted, I sat down. He'd been writing something but had covered whatever it was with a blotter. "Writing to someone?" I asked casually.

"In a manner of speaking, sir. It is a love letter."

Had I been drinking anything, I would have choked on it. "A love letter? Whomever to?"

"Miss Wardour, sir. I thought it would lend verisimilitude if when her suitor paid his daily call tomorrow, it could be found lying about."

I let out a relieved breath as he set my sandwich in front of me. "Thank you. Well, sit down, sit down, let's hear the thing." I was pathetically eager to hear these sorts of things in his voice even if they weren't meant for me.

"Very good, sir." He reclaimed his seat and took up the paper. "My dearest," he read, "I think I must have loved you before I ever knew you."

"Oh, that's clever," I intercepted, or perhaps interjected. "You'd have had to with what we're claiming."

"Yes, sir," Jeeves said, I thought a trifle annoyed at the interruption. I belted up for the remainder. "I must have always envisioned your eyes when looking upon a sky or a sapphire, without knowing for what I truly yearned. Your voice is that of the music which has been forever in my soul. Your sweet regard raises me above my station to the richest man alive. With bated breath I await the day that your longed-for kiss will be mine to take for as long as I do breathe."

It went on a while with something about charming freckles and that bit of somebody's about 'the pilgrim soul in you,' and I realised when he'd stopped that I hadn't actually been breathing myself. "Bally good stuff, Jeeves," I managed. As he didn't know her very well, the thing was vague enough that it could've been to anyone, even me. But oh, it wasn't, despite the blue eyes referred to. Actually— "You'd better change that bit about skies and sapphires, though. Make it meadows and emeralds or something. Marion's eyes are green."

"Ah. I must have...misremembered. Thank you, sir."

"You'd better put another note in with it, too, by way of explanation. We don't want Lisette getting the wrong idea again."

"No, sir."

"Do you know, Jeeves," I said after chewing a thoughtful bit of (yes, better than I would've made) sandwich, "with all the girls I've been engaged to, I've never once got a love letter? A 'Dear Bertram' or two, as it were, but never soppy words penned in devotion. I'd think it sad indeed if I'd ever much cared for any of them beyond at most the brotherly. Or perhaps it's sad anyway." I felt the late hour entitled me to wax a bit melancholic, even if I couldn't tell Jeeves the real reason. "Imagining myself withered and old, my dying regret that nobody ever loved me enough to write about it."

"Sir..."

Oh, I had to be making him dashed uncomfortable. "Sorry, Jeeves, ignore me. I daresay Madeline Bassett would've obliged me given enough encouragement." And who knew, with all the hearts I was learning I'd unwittingly broken lately, perhaps someone or other had been moved to letter-writing. Sandwich finished and lacking an excuse to linger, I bid Jeeves goodnight again.

"Sir?" Jeeves called as I made my exit. I turned back, and got the distinct impression that it was one of those moments when someone's about to say one thing, but thinks better of it and covers it up with something else. But as it surely wasn't 'I love you enough to write you letters, sir,' I didn't concern myself overmuch. "Are you still agreeable to visiting the exhibition tomorrow?"

"Of course, of course. I suppose you'll want me up and about at some unholy hour?"

"Perhaps a trifle earlier than usual, sir. I would like to precede the afternoon crowd if possible."

"Then precede we shall. But if it's before eight I'll not be responsible for my actions."

"Very good, sir."

He gave me till half-past eight, in fact, before he roused me, looking entirely too crisp for someone who'd had even less sleep than I'd been allowed.

"Don't you ever have a lie-in, Jeeves?" I grumbled into my pillow before wrenching myself upwards toward the promise of tea.

"Only when ill or on holiday, sir." I thought of Jeeves drowsing leisurely awake with nowhere to be, a thing I'd rather like to witness. "Some letters came, sir, forwarded from London."

"Oh? Who from?"

"One from your aunt Mrs Travers, sir, and one from the Reverend Pinker."

"It can't be very urgent or they'd have sent telegrams." I wasn't keen on having Jeeves set eyes on anything from Stinker, for who knew what it might contain. I hoped the man would have more sense than that, but one never knew. "I'll read them later. No sense piling on obligations when I'm barely awake."

 

We spent a very enjoyable day poking through the lauded exhibish, and though there was no holding of arms, there were a few bits we were obliged to crush in rather closely for, despite all the plans of crowd-preceding. It included a bit of a comedy of errors related to my cufflink getting caught on one of Jeeves's buttons and a witty, 'Well, Jeeves, it seems I've become rather attached to you,' from self. While it didn't make him really laugh, it earned half a chuckle or so as he disengaged the offending articles in a manner that required the brief holding of my hand, causing me to sigh at what a sad case I'd become.

By the time we returned home, it was well past teatime and my feet were crying out piteously—or would have been if feet could cry—in fatigue and pain, and I was absolutely certain that if I had to see one more jug or screen I might just hurl the thing into the Seine. I threw myself post-haste onto the nearest bit of furniture and put in a beseechment for one of those hot basins Jeeves prepares when _les pieds_ are complaining or there's some danger of my catching cold.

Jeeves came up with the goods and removed the offending footwear for me, which I'd lacked the energy to do. "It may sting, sir," he warned. "You have developed a few blisters." I shoved the aching feet in the water anyway. Sting it did, but I gritted my teeth and it gave way to relief that outweighed the slight burning. "I wish you had told me your feet were hurting, sir," Jeeves said. "We could have departed sooner."

"It wasn't really as bad as all that till right at the end. Besides, you were enjoying yourself. If I won't agree to Japan, I thought the least I could do was let you view its artifacts to your heart's content." But mostly, he'd been enjoying himself. I'd have been bored to tears an hour in, but watching him be so clever and interested had made it positively riveting.

"A kind consideration, sir, but unnecessary. I could have returned another day, and likely will in any case."

"Well, no sense belabouring it. Spilt milk and all that."

 

I lounged about for the remainder of the afternoon, reading my letters at last. Aunt Dahlia was hosting some gala for Angela's birthday and wanted to make certain I'd be back, and Stinker thankfully only wanted to see if I'd be averse to wearing a kilt.

"Oh, Jeeves, I'm glad I didn't have you read me Stinker's letter," I told him as he passed by in the course of some task or other. "It would have given you nightmares. A kilt! Honestly. He's seen my legs, what on earth makes him think that's a good idea?"

"I presume you refer to your role in the Reverend Pinker's upcoming nuptials and not some curious fad, sir?"

"Of course I mean the wedding. Here, take down a telegram. 'Stinker, in re kilt, cannot comply. Jeeves will disown me.'"

He'd got the joke and stopped writing, favouring me with a fractional smirk. "Surely you do not believe I would hold you responsible, sir."

"No, but you'd be unbearable about it for weeks. I can hear the skirt remarks now."

"I have the utmost respect for traditional Highland dress when worn by someone of that extraction, sir. It is perfectly appropriate for the groom to be thus attired while his attendants are clothed in the usual manner."

"Well, thank goodness for small favours. But that's too long for a telegram." I yawned. "I'll write back later."

I hobbled my way over to the piano. I didn't really feel much like playing it, but as Jeeves had gone to the trouble of having the thing tuned, I thought it shouldn't be for nothing, and I was feeling a bit too idle even for my own taste. It wasn't until I'd wrung a few mindless bars out of the thing that I realised I was playing the song I'd danced to with Jeeves, which probably accounted for the decidedly rummy look he was giving me from the doorway.

"Sorry," I muttered. "That's probably the last thing you want to hear." It must have been, for he turned and walked away without a word. I cursed myself for a fool.

The rest of the evening and well past the next morning were marked by a decided tension. It wasn't the same sort that cropped up from time to time over a jacket or a hat; it was far worse than that. Jeeves avoided being anywhere near me for any longer than absolutely necessary, and when he expressed a stiff wish to return for more antiquity-viewing, I bid him go with some relief.

This, I feared, was the bitter end, unless matters improved drastically, and soon. But the one person whose counsel I usually turned to in these things was, for obvious reasons, not to be consulted. I could, I supposed, ask Marion for advice, but what good could it do? What was done couldn't be undone.

 

Feeling very sorry for myself indeed, I ankled down to the Pomme d'Or with the intention of getting blindingly shuttered.

There I found a shoeless Alec, wearing a fez and seated on the floor in front of a perfectly serviceable chair, smoking a hookah as he wrote in his book. "Bertie!" he exclaimed, a great strawberry cloud coming out along with the greeting. At least someone was happy to see me.

"What ho, Alec," I said, trying and failing to muster a bit of spirit.

"You seem not in the gayest of humours," he said.

"I'm not, I'm afraid."

"Well, pull up a bit of rug. It's impossible to be sad while smoking strawberry shisha." Actually, it wasn't, I found, but it was nice stuff nonetheless. Sort of like inhaling dessert. "You, Bertie Wooster, have got a face like a slapped arse," he informed me some minutes later. "What on earth vexes you so?"

"I'm in love with someone who doesn't love me," I said.

"Oh, bad luck. Bad luck. Not that tall-dark-and-glowering chap I saw you with at the P'tit G.?"

"Shh! Are you mad?" I tried to calm myself. He certainly couldn't tell anybody he'd seen me there without saying he'd been there himself.

"Oh, come. No one here cares, and no one's here _to_ care." He gestured round, and the room was indeed empty.

"It doesn't matter who it is. You asked the reason for my less-than-cheery demeanour and I gave it. And as it happens I was at that club because the girl singing there is a friend of mine."

"Did I ask?"

"There were insinuations."

"And what do you suppose I was doing there?" He blew out a line of three perfect rings.

"It's none of my business."

"This isn't bloody Britain, you know. You won't be put to hard labour for an inverted thought."

Whatever inverted thoughts were. I supposed they were the sorts I was having. "So I've been told." I popped up. "Thanks for the smoke. I'll just be—"

Alec popped up after me. "Oh, don't go. I promise I'll behave. We can...play cards or something."

"I'm afraid I'm not very good company."

"You're perfectly lovely company. I'll hazard a guess you're here because you don't want to be home alone and unloved." He pointed a stern finger at me. "Stay put." I stay-putted, since he had rather the right of it and going home truly wasn't that fair a prospect. My host, such as he was, returned bearing a bottle and a deck of cards. He set the supplies down on the floor and tugged me back down, placing the fez atop my head and giving the cards a shuffle. "Now, then. What'll it be? Two-handed bridge?"

"You can't play two-handed bridge."

"Spoilsport. All right, then, gin? Bugger-My-Neighbour?"

"I beg your pardon!"

"What? You've never heard of Beggar-My-Neighbour?"

"Oh. I thought you said something else."

"And who knows, I might've done. Let's make it interesting, though. However many cards you lay down for a penalty, you have to take that many drinks."

It sounded like a way to get perfectly blotto in five seconds flat, and I questioned the wisdom, but it was, after all, why I'd come here. The drowning of sorrows, I mean, not the corrupting of children's card games. Seemed a good a method as any for getting the stuff for the troops down the gullet, so I agreed. They weren't drinks as such, as Alec hadn't got any glasses, but four swallows in a row of unadulterated whiskey is still a fair bit, and he had all the bally aces. I had all the kings, though, so we were neither of us too well off by the time the deck was won. Or possibly we were very well off, depending how you looked at it.

However you looked at it, I lacked the sense or the strength to protest when I was hauled up off the floor and told, "Come round to my houshe and I'll make you some toasht."

I'm sure the pair of us looked a sight, self still be-fezzed and draped over Alec, whose shoes had not been invited on the excursion, both of us singing 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' in various and sundry keys. Our destination proved to be not so much a house as a garret, up interminable dark rickety staircases that seemed to swing back and forth. At last I was deposited onto a scratchy settee whose cushions all but swallowed me.

"Toasted marmalade, just the thing!" Alec cried. "Oh, arsing fuck, I've forgot my shoes."

"They'll wait for you," I said sagely, then laughed myself practically to tears at the notion.

Toast (burnt) with too much marmalade was served to me either in a matter of minutes or hours. I couldn't be sure which, only that I opened my eyes after some interval of woozy drifting to find a slice of the stuff in question being shoved between my lips, followed when I'd finished by something it took me a moment to realise was a tongue.

"What are you doing?" I said, but due to the sloppy labial press it came out more to the tune of a lot of _mmph_ -ing. I tried to shove Alec back so I could make myself understood, but my whiskey-weakened limbs plus the condition of being rather sat on rendered my effort bootless. And something in me just said 'Oh, what's the use?' and I joined in. 'Maybe,' it said, 'maybe this is just what you need. Surely it's better than being alone.'

And for one half of one moment, it was. But then it wasn't. It was all wrong. He felt all wrong, smelt all wrong, even tasted all wrong. The hand that dove down my trousers before I could stop it was too small, too cold, and the thing that had been telling me to go along with it was drowned out by something shouting, 'No no no no no!' I gave a mighty shove with all my strength, and Alec toppled to the floor with a cry. So, too, did a box that had been on a side table, spilling out a cascade of photographs. Not just any photographs, I saw with rising horror. Photographs of boys, men, twos, threes, fours, doing the most— "Good lord!" I exclaimed.

The Alec demon got out no more than, "It's not—" before I ran. Out of the flat, down the dark and swinging stairs, stumbling and tripping all the way out into the street, and down it, ignoring the cries of old ladies with their shopping and fashionable Parisians out for a stroll, round a corner and another, until I staggered into an alley just in time to be violently sick in somebody's dustbin. And then I sank down upon the grimy cobbles as shivers and sobs wracked through me.

I don't know how long I stayed that way before, the drink out of me and the danger past, I managed to breathe without wheezing and the stinging tears dried. Wiser men, after such an ordeal, would likely have had some spark of perfect clarity come over them, some 'what it all really means' of some sort, but not I. I simply wanted to go home.

New fear seized me at the thought of Jeeves. What would he say, to see me in this state? Would the debauchery I'd clearly been up to be the final nail in the coffin? Or would he feel so terribly sorry for me that he'd forget this rift and let us go on as before?

Whatever the music to be faced, I had to face it, for I certainly could not become a permanent resident of this alley. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, righted the clothes as best I could and got a cab home.

 

I crept in, tail between my legs, and realised after a few shouts and knocks that I was blessedly, mercifully alone. Jeeves was still out with the antiquities. I had a stay of execution. I would have to explain what had happened to the suit, but perhaps I could just let on about the overindulgence and stumbling. I wouldn't be forced to face him in this sorry state. I hurried up to the bath and scrubbed like I'd never scrubbed before, wanting every trace of the disastrous afternoon gone.

Sadly, I could not scrub the memories from my mind, and despite being respectably attired and clean by the time Jeeves returned, I was still in a right state. The photographs haunted me. I think Alec had been about to tell me it wasn't what I thought, but what was it, then? Had he taken those? Bought them? Did he know those men? Were they his collection? A bit of the shame ballooned itself into anger, and also relief that I had escaped with my virtue more or less intact and my person unphotographed. The worm had got himself an advantage and proceeded to press it. But for that one all-wrong moment, I had been an innocent bystander in the proceedings, hadn't I? I tried to believe it.

"Poets!" I spat when Jeeves noticed the very obvious agitation and deposited his parcels to ask after my health. "Poets!" I could say no more.

Jeeves had the good sense not to try and make me, but he brandished a _petit bleu_ at me. "This arrived just as I did, sir."

I took one look at the direction on the thing and thrust it back at him. "Build a fire and throw it on," I said.

"Had you better not read it first, sir?"

"No, Jeeves, I hadn't better. Take down the following." I paused to collect myself as he readied his pencil and form. "'Message burnt unread. Nothing more to say to you. Leave me alone,'" I dictated. "Don't sign it." There was more than a slight raising of eyebrows, but he took it faithfully down. "I'm sorry to send you back out again straight away, but I want that despatched post-haste."

"Very good, sir," Jeeves said with a cryptic air. He reapplied his hat and shimmered out.

There. My hands were washed of the Cartwright scourge. I went and shut myself in my room, in no humour to be spoken to or even looked at.

Jeeves left me to it for a time, but right around six there was a cautious knock at my door, presumably to see if he'd be delivering the customary p.m. refreshment. I pulled a pillow over my face and didn't answer.

More tapping. "Are you awake, sir?"

"No," I called irritably.

"May I enter, sir?"

I sighed. This wasn't Jeeves's fault. If I didn't want the last nail driven into the coffin I shouldn't be horrid to him. "If you must," I groaned.

In he came, depositing the drink on the bedside table as though this were nothing out of the usual run of things. He knelt down next to the bed and silently removed my shoes, which I'd been dangling over the edge to keep them off the bedclothes. I gratefully curled my feet up under me. "Will you be wanting dinner, sir?" He used the sort of tone one might with a horse likely to kick.

"No, I don't think I will." I didn't even want the drink, and the stomach organ recoiled at the mere mention of food. "Have the night off if you like, Jeeves. I don't think I'll be needing anything."

"If something is troubling you, sir—"

" _Today_ is troubling me, Jeeves. I'd like it to be over as soon as possible."

"Very good, sir." And if it weren't Jeeves saying those words, I'd have thought them said a bit sadly. General weariness at the young master's moodiness was far more likely. He was acting very charitable towards me under the circs, and I ought to have fostered it, but I was in such a frightful stew over it all that any effort would likely have made it worse.

I drifted off into a nightmarish sort of half-awakeness, the darkness behind my eyelids some carnival freakshow of teeming limbs and drunken laughter, visions of Jeeves shoving me away and saying he hated me before returning his attentions to some writhing sepia form.

I don't know what time it was—late, for it was fully dark—that the bell and the raised voices crept their way into my consciousness. They blended in with the nightmare at first and didn't rouse me immediately, but then I bolted upright. Alec was here.

I crept on trembling pins to the door and cracked it open just a smidge. I couldn't see them, of course, but I could hear them.

"...not in the habit of admitting persons to the household who have been expressly told by Mr Wooster to impose on him no further," Jeeves said in an arctic manner. It was dire indeed if he'd dispensed with the regrettably-not-at-home and honorifics.

"Oh, you're his bodyguard as well, are you?" There was a mad sort of slurring to his tone that told me the effects of the drink had not quite worn off, or had been renewed.

"If needs must," Jeeves said.

"But it's all just a misunderstanding! Here, if you'd just move the hell aside and let me go and explain—"

"I do not presume to judge what is and is not a misunderstanding. If it be so, then I daresay a resolution will come about absent my intervention." Generally the opposite of how Jeeves operated, actually, but I was ever so grateful for it. "But at present, Mr Cartwright, you are trespassing, and if you do not find yourself several streets away in the next minute, I shall send for the police."

The scourge sort of cackled in a mad and unhinged way. "You bloody well deserve each other," he called what must've been over his shoulder, for it faded. As things for him to say went, it wasn't good, but there was a whole list of far worse ones, and hopefully Jeeves would dismiss it as mad ramblings.

I sank down onto the bed in relief. I'd be fine tomorrow, I told—nay, commanded—myself as I donned proper nightwear. I'd be the very soul of fine and bright cheer, and do something nice for Jeeves by way of apology.

I must've got off to the dreamless at some point. Mid convincing-of-self not to be such a blasted pill on the morrow, the morrow was here, as was Jeeves with the tea. The discarded clothes had already disappeared, and in place of my normal dressing-gown at the foot of the bed, there was a curiosity. A kimono, in fact, with fish and birds in about fourteen shades of blue (give or take).

At my unasked what's-all-this-then, Jeeves stated, "Had you not expressed a wish to own such a garment, sir? I assumed your failure to purchase one to be an oversight. I apologise if I misapprehended—"

"No, Jeeves, it's really corking. I love it." Oh, how I loved it. I had indeed sung its praises in the souvenir shop. I'd restrained myself in the end, thinking the thing wouldn't last a day in the household before meeting some sorry end, but Jeeves had noticed and gone and got me one just because he thought I'd like it. I was touched, to say the least. "But it's— I certainly don't deserve it. I've been an absolute trial of late."

"I had not formed that opinion in this particular case, sir." Meaning that in other particular cases, he rather had, but was too polite to say so. "I am gratified it meets with your approval."

"Decidedly, Jeeves. Decidedly. But I wouldn't have thought it would meet with yours."

"If I can bear the red pyjamas, sir, I can bear anything," he said with that put-upon valet-y stoicism I'd come to know and love as his brand of humour. "Only I would request that you not wear them both at once, sir, out of consideration for my nerves."

I laughed, and it felt so bally good to be doing so. For I'd had it all wrong, hadn't I? I'd been fretting over coffins and nails therein, and all the while Jeeves had been apparently scheming to cheer me up, not to give his notice. "What care I for red pyjamas when there are blue kimonos in the world? Make curtains out of them for all I care." I downed the tea and scrambled rather childishly over the bed to drape the prize about me. "Well?" I asked, holding out my arms and doing a bit of a turn.

"Very becoming, sir." I knew Jeeves was giving it his best, and it must've taken everything he had not to tell me what he really thought.

I'm sure I looked a perfect idiot, grinning and swooping the sleeves about, but if he'd done this to please me I wasn't going to jolly well hide the light under a bushel.

It was the finest morning in the history of fine mornings, and the weather was very nice on top of it, so I breakfasted at the little table on the back terrace, kimono and all. Jeeves came out somewhere during the proceedings with a freshening spot of tea and I held out a section of my paper in invitation. He didn't take it, floating instead back indoors, and for a moment I thought the morning not so nice after all, but then he reappeared with a second teacup and took the other chair. Thusly, there we sat, reading away in companionable quietude.

The garden had high walls bordered by a small army of pear trees, and surely among it all there was a snail on a thorn. One could almost imagine oneself in an idyllic country meadow. Which, come to think of it, didn't sound half bad. I waited till Jeeves seemed to be between bits of news before springing the idea. "Still fancy that jaunt up to Brittany, Jeeves?"

"Indeed, sir. I look forward to it."

"Well, don't look too far forward. How does this this very weekend suit you?"

"It suits me very well, sir, though there may be some difficulty procuring lodgings at such late notice."

"Ah, yes. There is that. Well, give it a go. Fine mornings in gardens make me itch for a bit of country air." It was true I was craving something a bit more pastoral, but it was also a good deal to do with locales lacking in Cartwrights.

"I shall see to it directly, sir."

Of course, this did result in Jeeves biffing off to make telephone calls, but that wasn't all bad either, as I ambled back in to the privilege of his French. After about the fifth 'oui, monsieur, je comprends, merci,' though, it began to lose its charm in the face of _aubergements_ (or perhaps _hébergements_ ) looking a bit less likely. But just when I was sure the bloom was off the rose, Jeeves came through with a burst of energy at the finish with an 'on vous verra jeudi, monsieur,' that was, _absolument_ , music to my ears. Only three days and it would be just Jeeves and self in a cosy country cottage.

_H_ _é_ _las_ , there was still the matter of the Fleecing of Renaud to be tended to before we could feel the wind in our hair— that very evening, in fact, so we donned the evening clothes in due course.

"I may be obliged to demonstrate some show of affection towards Miss Wardour, sir," Jeeves said with rather the air of a chap facing a firing squad.

Though my heart sank to the vicinity of my knees, I was all encouragement. "Stiff upper lip, Jeeves." And stiff upper lip, Bertram, while we're at it, I thought. "I know you'll carry it off. Though if you keep calling her Miss Wardour, you're bound to blow our cover."

"I shall manage when the time comes, sir." His u. l. was very stiff indeed.

Calling the event 'dinner' would have been far too charitable, as we barely got a foot in the door. This Renaud blighter glowering in the background, Marion greeted Jeeves with an effusive or effervescent (or something like) 'darling!' and, with a whispered 'forgive me' so quick and quiet only he and I heard it, proceeded to lay an extremely impressive and far too convincing kiss upon the not-so-stiff-any-longer lips of Jeeves.

Lisette and I exchanged rueful glances over their shoulders, and Renaud's glowering gave way to a great deal of shouting. I couldn't quite catch it all, but the gist of the thing was that he wanted us out of his house, and _vite._ He took a swing at Jeeves before we could leg it, but Jeeves skilfully blocked it and left the red-faced giant sprawled on his backside as we made good our escape. Happily, the cab in which Jeeves and I had arrived was still there, and the getaway was swift.

Safely on the road, Marion thought it all a very good joke. Jeeves was pink-cheeked and avoiding eyes. I myself was feeling rather green around the eyes and gills. Lisette was furious.

"See how you like it!" she exclaimed, and to my utter shock bestowed a great smacker of a smooch upon yours truly.

"I say!" I cried when I had the use of my lips again.

It fell on deaf ears, as the ladies began bickering in rapid French I couldn't follow. I was afraid to look at Jeeves, for to see he hadn't minded at all would have been rather a blow.

Someone, presumably Jeeves, had told the cabbie to hie us to the Wooster res. Marion and Lisette continued to argue without breaking stride, and I escaped into the kitchen on Jeeves's heels as soon as I could get round them.

"Lovers' tiff, what?" I said nervously. "I didn't think I'd be causing anything like that when I came up with the scheme."

"No, sir. Miss Wardour's...display was entirely her own contrivance." Well, nice to know they hadn't planned it in advance, but it didn't make me like it any better. "I thought some small quantity of fond gazing might have sufficed."

"Got it over with quickly, though. 'Twere well it were done and all that. I'm not sure I could've stuck that Renaud fellow through four courses. Positively Spode-like, if Spode were taller."

"Indeed, sir."

He passed me a drink and I knocked it back. Arguing sorts of sounds could still be heard. "Can you believe Lisette being jealous? You and Marion barely know each other." It wasn't the ideal topic, but there wasn't much else to hand just now.

"Seeing the object of one's affection in the arms of another can move one to irrational thought, sir," Jeeves said sagely.

"I suppose it can, at that." I decided that was too telling and soldiered on with, "When Tuppy was sure Angela had been charmed away from him, he even suspected me, saw the worst in every little thing." The rather more recent occurrence not for mentioning, of course.

"Suspicion is not always required, sir." Before I could puzzle out this particular species of stuffed-frog, he lifted up a finger as though to say 'tweet-tweet, shush-shush,' but in actual fact said, "I believe they have stopped."

Sure enough, there was no more shouting. I poked my head out the door and poked it straight back in with cheeks aflame, having found them locked in an e. most passionate. "Think we should give them a minute yet."

Jeeves caught my meaning with a 'lord, what fools these mortals be' sort of half-smirking sigh and sauntered out with a tea tray and an allow-me-sir as though he wasn't about to walk right into the thick of it. I suppose in Jeeves's line of work, one must see enough that not much is all that fazing.

When I stepped a cautious toe out after a minute or two, both females were a proper distance apart, sipping tea and dabbing handkerchiefs dantily at their eyes. Jeeves had already biffed off to parts unknown, possibly to change his collar for one without lipstick on.

"I'm so sorry, Bertie," Marion said in that high sobbish just-done-crying way only a woman can manage. "It was thoughtless of me to do that with no warning."

"You have my apologies as well," Lisette said, though she looked less sorry. "I do not generally kiss men."

"What's done is done," I said, "and all's well that ends well. I believe you're well shut of Renaud."

"At last." Marion's smile was beatific.

"Tell me, did he see the letter?" I asked. "How did it go over?"

"What letter?" asked Marion.

"Jeeves's, of course."

"I didn't get any letter. Lisette?"

"None came that I saw."

"No? I suppose you'd have remembered, at that. It was a right corker of a _lettre d'amour_ meant to be left lying about for Renaud to find. What a thing to go astray in the post." It was odd, but one never knows with Parisian postmen. Oofy once sent me a postcard from Paris that didn't turn up for two months.

 

I thought no more on the business of the letter until the next day when I happened to mention it in passing while handing Jeeves my overdue replies to Aunt Dahlia and Stinker. "Don't send them however you sent that love letter, Jeeves. Marion never got it."

"Indeed, sir? Most disturbing. It is fortunate that it was not an essential communication."

"Oh, well. Perhaps it'll turn up yet. Or else some poor lady's husband will be very cross with her."

"Doubtful, sir, unless the lady's name also happens to be Marion Wardour. Nevertheless, I will do my best to see that these arrive safely."

I'll admit I was a trifle put out; I'd been going to ask Marion to let me have the thing, odes to green eyes or no. I wondered if Jeeves still had the original blue-eyed version, but there was no way to ask him for it and I wasn't going to stoop to pawing through his private papers. On reflection, wanting a love letter badly enough that you'd take one not even written to you was a bit sad, so perhaps it was well enough.


	4. Playing to the Audience

**Sorting Out the Dance Card**

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**4\. Playing To the Audience**

****The intervening days between the Renaud debacle and the departure to Brittany passed pleasantly enough, except that Marion had pressed me into service playing piano for an entertainment at a children's home where she did good works occasionally. The original pianist had broken an arm in some bizarre gardening accident and I was in easy supply since Jeeves was much occupied with the travel arrangements, or seemed to be with all the messages he seemed to be running to and fro with.

This entertainment was not one of those step-up-as-you-will affairs where 'Sonny Boy' is sung four times and vegetables are hurled; there was a set programme and therefore several rehearsals. They had a magic act, a few songs from Marion and some cronies of hers, a bit of puppetry, and a short play, though not quite in that order.

The closing number was to be a trio of well-known musical actors with an exlusive from their latest _spectacle_ , which from what I'd heard of it would be quite the thing to see when it openened. The bit they were doing was a dashed catchy little tune entitled 'This Friend of Mine,' presumably chosen for its wholesome friendship-fostering character, though I was doubtful as to how much _les_ kiddies _français_ would really understand. A sampling went:

He's always loyal, he doesn't spoil  
A good time with a glare or a frown.  
And brimming's he with charity,  
Picks me up when I fall down!

It rather loses a bit without the accompanying theatricals, actually. The fellow playing the friend demonstrates all these things he doesn't do, shoving the other fellow over before picking him up and dusting him off, stomping his hat to a pancake and then whacking it back into shape, that sort of thing. A good laugh all round, and catchy indeed, as I've said. I found myself singing it round the house a good deal, sometimes without even noticing I was doing it.

Jeeves happened to be in the room when I warbled the bit about 'he's certainly my better half,' which necessitated explaining the entire plot lest he think I was implying something. I wasn't, of course, but when I thought about it there were quite a few bits of Jeeves I could see in the words. My better half, most indisputably, and he did always pick me up eventually when I fell down. Bar the one very particular case, naturally, of my falling for him. He couldn't pick me up from that unless he fell right back, which was not likely.

"Oh, I'm hopeless," I muttered sotto voce.

"I rather think not, sir," Jeeves said, having reappeared.

I jumped out of my skin. "You'll give a chap a coronary, sneaking up like that, Jeeves!" I gasped. "And if you ask more or less anyone who's ever met me, I'm quite hopeless. 'Tis merely a fact of life." The words were spoken airily, but felt less so.

"I would disagree, sir, but I doubt you wish to argue."

"Not in the slightest," I peeved. I planted myself back at the piano and started banging out a tune I knew Jeeves held in great contempt. He took himself off, my intended result, but once he'd gone I found myself wishing he'd stayed and told me all the ways in which I was not hopeless. Which I think really made me even more hopless.

Annoying him right out of the room would win me no points, and I regretted having done it. In mind of redeeming myself, I took a stab at some long-neglected Mozart. I never played the stuff, but it seemed right up Jeeves's street. More than a few bars had not passed out of boyhood with me, though, so I bumbled over to the bookcase where I thought I remembered seeing something of the sort among Uncle Henry's music books. I took down some well-thumbed opus or other in triumph.

Something fluttered out from between the pages and I bent to pick it up. It was a letter, an old letter, dated 1892 and beginning 'dearest.' No name, just 'dearest.' It proved to be an extremely eloquent and adoring birthday salutation to accompany the gift of the music. It could have been from anyone to anyone; there was no signature, apparently on purpose, just '...' after all the I-am-as-ever business. It didn't look like my Aunt Emily's writing, and why wouldn't she have signed it if she'd written it?

I forgot all my musings in view of this oddity and went to put the thing to Jeeves. "What do you make of this?" I asked, entering the kitchen waving the paper at him.

He dried his hands from whatever he'd been scrubbing and took it. As soon as he did, he registered very definite surprise. "Where did you find this, sir?"

"It fell out of here." I held up the book. "I suppose I oughtn't to have read it, but I didn't know what it was and it's not to anybody or from anybody."

"I could not say, sir." But Jeeves is never incapable of saying. It's merely that he thinks he shouldn't, or doesn't want to.

"Oh, come, if you know something, out with it."

He hesitated, but sighed. "It is not a certainty, sir, but I believe this is Mr Brittingham's writing."

"Oh. I suppose he just stuck it in there and forgot about it. I don't think he ever married, so it must've gone wrong somewhere." Poor old bird. "Do you suppose he'd want it back?"

"One never knows whether these things will bring happy memories or simply open old wounds, sir."

Something about the way he drew himself up saying that told me not to press it any further. I assumed it had to do with this unpleasant time of his he'd made reference to with the jewel thievery, but I now wondered if there was more to it than duplicitous friends. Some girl breaking his heart and love dying that very day. I never know when to leave well enough alone or to listen to the somethings telling me not to do one thing or another, so I said, "You speak as though from experience, Jeeves."

"I would not wish to dwell upon it, sir. You would do me a kindness if you did not press me to say more."

Dash it, I wanted to know. What was it? Who was it? Could I find her, study her, learn once and for all what it took to ensnare his heart? Even reunite them? A painful thought, this reunion, but if he could be happy, who was I not to render aid? It wasn't that, good reason though it was, that stopped me. It was that he had not refused to tell, but asked not to be asked.

"You know any such kindness I can do you is yours for the taking," I said, with too much affection, I'm sure. Our eyes met for a moment, and in that moment, for just a fraction of it, he looked so wounded and fearful that I longed to comfort him. "I had no right to press as far as I did," I said instead of the folding-in-arms I wanted to do because whoever this girl was, she'd done some number on him.

In case he didn't want to remain forever silent on the subj., I said, "But as it seems that whatever this is weighs rather heavily on you, if you ever think speaking of it to a neutral party would make it a bit lighter, I stand ready."

"I..." He shook his head. "Thank you, sir."

I knew that was the end of it for the time being, and took a gamble at lightening matters up. "Well," I said, tucking the letter back whence it had come and thumping the cover of the book, "trying to play something you wouldn't turn up your nose at for once has backfired splendidly. In future I'll curtail all attempts to please my audience." Oh, that hadn't bally well come out right. I'd never meant to admit I was trying to play _for_ him. I slunk off to my rehearsal and stayed out late so as not to be forced to revisit the matter.

Nothing more was said, but the day of the entertainment (which was also the day before our removal to the much-anticipated cottage), I found a shiny new Chopin collection perched atop the piano. It made me smile more than a little. I gave the thing a whirl while he was out for the daily baguettes and found I'd much improved at it since my ladhood. There was one piece I'd hated, on account of being drilled to death on its milllion and one notes, but I rather liked it now. My fingers remembered it better than I'd given them credit for. I couldn't do it with my eyes closed or anything like that, but it came more easily than expected.

Another point in its favour was that actually, when you weren't a boy cursing it to death because you wanted to play something fun, it was really dashed romantic-sounding, crescendoing up and down and every which way, but not some delicate little thing about butterflies, either; you could really throw your back into it. Sort of—no, exactly—the way I imagined this longed-for romance would go, really, if it were to go. A bit frantic, a bit mad, soft but not too soft. _Fantasie Impromptu_ , it called itself, and if that wasn't apt I didn't know what was.

The thing of really throwing your back into something is that it rather hinders the ability to hear sounds such as footsteps and doors, and at the end of it I looked up to see Jeeves standing there, still holding the shopping and really just sort of watching me, either transfixed or horrified.

"I'm sure I'm butchering it," I said with a ducking sort of mutter.

"No, sir." There was more force in those two words than I'd ever heard him put into them. Transfixed? Really? Surely not. He must have some particular love for that bit of music. It couldn't be me. "It was very well done."

I barely got off a thank-you before he resumed his path to the kitchen. I felt a general oh-dearishness about the whole matter— what if I'd picked the one thing too affecting to hear? But were that the case, he had sense enough to know I'd never miss it if he pulled the pages out. He must have liked it. And liked me playing it. Not the way I wanted, of course, but it was something.

That evening, Mother Nature graced Paris with a downpour of Biblical proportions. The Seine swelled upon its banks and apparently over a few bridges as well, but luckily I was already on the proper bank to reach the Au Paradis des Enfants establishment without an oar and a raven. Unfortunately the chappie meant to be singing some newish and lovely French ditty was not. As the puppet show was in the same boat (not a proverbial one, if I made that out correctly), Marion begged me to fill the gap a bit.

"Just...sing something. It doesn't matter what."

"But what? I've got no music other than what's on the bill, and I'll look a perfect ass if I try to sing Philippe's song."

"But you know piles of stuff by heart." I was reminded of my young cousin Thos when as a littler gnat than he was now, he used to beg for sweets.

"Yes, and mine alone. I can't play and sing, not someplace this size. They'll never hear me unless we can turn the piano round." A laughable notion; if the instrument had been needed to escape the flood, it could have carried all the children easily. "Besides, who'll play if I don't?"

"I can, if it's nothing too complicated."

"There is still the distinct lack of anything readily performable."

"Well, didn't Jeeves come? Send him back to get something."

"Why would Jeeves come?"

"You mean you didn't ask him to?"

"What for? To sit with a bunch of squirming youngsters and suffer through stuff he doesn't even like?"

"No, you dolt!" She looked round, I think to check that we were alone. "To see you play."

"To see the side of my head?"

"Oh, Bertie. You're an idiot."

"I am? I mean, I rather am, I know— but why this time?"

"When you put your fingers on those keys, something _happens_. You just light up, like you're having the time of your life. It makes you look really...well, it shows your very best qualities."

"Marion, old thing, it's lovely of you to be looking out for my interests, but horses cannot be made to drink, even in this sort of deluge."

"No, but if you keep showing them water they might remember they're thirsty. Come on, there's still time. Ring him up to bring some music and when he gets here, ask him to stay." She'd been manhandling me towards the telephone during this speech, and now all but threw me on top of it.

I doubted Jeeves would remember any thirst if he hadn't by now, but I dutifully did the ringing-up. "Jeeves," I said when he answered. "I call out to you in a time of minor crisis." I explained the posish briefly and asked him to ankle round with a few sheets of something that would suit.

"Nothing too hard to play," Marion called from where she was supervising.

"Nothing too hard to play, Jeeves," I repeated.

"Yes, sir, I heard Miss Wardour. You could simply ask if any person present knows 'Sonny Boy,' sir."

"Is that your idea of a joke, Jeeves?"

"Yes, sir. I fear it was in poor taste."

I laughed. "No, we must learn to laugh at ourselves. But please, anything but that. Er. If you don't mind, that is. I know you'd probably not venture out in this weather."

"I believe I shall manage, sir."

He arrived a scant half-hour later with the goods, mysteriously dry and unruffled but for a few drops on the shoulders of his overcoat. Marion snatched the music from him before I could lay a finger on it, muttering as she leafed through. Finally she popped one on top and tapped it. "Here. This'll be perfect."

"'The Song is Ended?' It will be, at that. It'll bore the little blighters to sleep and the melody will linger on in their dreams."

"It's the closest thing to what Philippe was doing. Don't argue, Bertie."

"Oh, all right. They haven't got potatoes or anything, have they?"

"Of course not," she said. "Jeeves, Lisette is out in the front row. I'm sure she'd like some company."

"Don't feel you must, Jeeves," I said, despite the pinch I received for my trouble. "Your fearful trip is done and you're free to return to the comforts of home."

"I would not wish to miss your performance, sir." I couldn't be sure if he meant he'd like to have a good laugh at what an ass I'd make of myself or that he'd really like to see it.

"Well, then, enjoy _le spectacle_ , I suppose."

 

When my turn came, Marion slipped out of the wings to announce me and took up my place on the piano bench. I do much better at singing if I've got someone to sing to, but it didn't seem quite right to direct a soppy love ballad at some unfortunate child. Nor did it seem a terribly wise idea to look at Jeeves, so I fixated at random on a bit of wall and did my best. But my traitorous gaze kept drifting, and by the time I got to the closing bit about 'you and the song had gone, but the melody lingers on,' said t.g. drifted directly onto Jeeves and had the almighty gall to, indeed, linger.

Eyes met, and I'm surprised I didn't forget to sing entirely. If I could have bottled up that moment and hung it round my neck, I would have, because for space of those two lines, the audience sort of blurred into nothing and he was the only one there. For the fleeting m., I nearly believed that perhaps he was, to continue the theme, thirsty after all. But it was over just as quickly and the world came back into focus, and with it the let-down of having fooled myself.

The lights must have made my eyes water. I hurried back to the shadows of the accompanist's seat. Marion gave me a questioning look, which I answered with a saddish shake of the bean. She sighed, patted my hand, and was gone. A few jaunty tunes and a bit of comedy soon had me in better spirits by the end, but there was a distinct undercurrent of greyness to it.

Jeeves caught up with me outside the makeshift dressing-rooms with Lisette in tow. "Marion's still changing, I think," I told her, pointing at the room allotted to the ladies.

"You sang beautifully." She got up on her tippy-toes to kiss each of my cheeks, a vast improvement on the last time her lips had been applied to the Wooster map.

"Thanks. Say goodnight to Marion for me, would you? I'm dead on my feet and facing a rather acky ack emma."

Lisette's strong grasp of English apparently did not extend to such wordplay. "A what-y ack-what?"

"I've got to get up early. We're off to Brittany for a spell."

"You must eat a _crêpe sarrasin_ and write a postcard telling me all about it."

"Whatever those are, I'll try to search one out," I promised, though it sounded rather Rabelaisian and unpleasant.

"It is impossible not to find one. If you go to the Ti Mamm in Fougères and mention my name, Anne will take very good care of you."

"I didn't realise you were from there."

"Oh, yes. I miss it still. But a woman like me cannot truly _live_ there, you understand." In fact, I rather did.

We'd hung about long enough that I was able to say _au revoir_ to Marion in person. "Good luck," she whispered as she did her own bit of cheek kissing.

 

Jeeves was utterly silent until we were nearly out the door, and he only spoke then because I spoke first. "Well, I hope you weren't bored to tears, Jeeves."

"Not at all, sir. Most of the programme was very entertaining. I failed to congratulate you on an admirable performance."

"Well, thank you. I didn't think it was all that good, but not too shabby for half an hour's warning."

We stepped out under the awning in hopes of a cab, but there was nary a one. "There is a stand two streets over, sir," Jeeves said. "If you would care to wait indoors, I can return in one in a few minutes' time."

"Don't be silly, Jeeves. I won't melt. I'll walk with you."

"Did you not mention lending your umbrella to one of the ladies, sir?"

I had, for I'd figured I could bear the rain better than she. "Yes, but the one you carry round everywhere is big enough for half of W1. I think we can manage two streets." I'd had no idea at the time of using it as a scheme to huddle under an umbrella with the o. of my a., but one does not scrutinise the dental work of horses one is given. But one also should not push their heads into the stream. "I can wait here if you'd rather not."

"I believe it will be more expedient, sir, if I go on my own."

"Right ho, Jeeves," I said dejectedly. If the man didn't want to go round sharing umbrella space with me, it was his business. As much as I would have liked it, it wouldn't do to be constantly forcing him into close quarters. If I wasn't suspicious enough already, a thing like that would certainly be telling.

Perhaps, I thought as I waited, it was inevitable that he would work it out. Jeeves cannot be kept in the dark for long about anything. And on that day, when I said something or did something that was just an inch too revealing, he'd be lost. Did I take what I could until then and consider it better than never having loved at all? I couldn't see any other way; I didn't have it in me to pretend more than I was. I am simply not built to suddenly decide a thing should have no more power over me. I wondered if I should go so far as to find some girl to appear infatuated with, to put him off the scent, but the thought wearied me. No, the status would quo as it had always quoed, and I'd take my heartbreak like a man when he finally dished it up.

The cab arrived and I made a dash for it, not waiting for Jeeves to come valet me in. I rather whacked into him as I dove inside, as he'd been sliding across to get out. "Oof. Sorry, Jeeves."

"I was coming to assist you, sir."

"Never mind, I'm here now. Allons-y."

Jeeves waved the cabbie on. I ran my hands through my damp hair and wiped at my face with my handkerchief, which reduced it to a useless soaked thing. Jeeves took it from me and replaced it with a fresh one, with which I wiped my hands before tucking it into my pocket, fully knowing it was his. I'd pretend I hadn't noticed if he later questioned why I had it.

We did end up squashing up under the umbrella, but only for the half a second or so it took to get inside the door. I kicked off my squelching shoes as soon as we were in, and after a moment decided I couldn't bear the socks a moment longer either and sat down on the bench in the foyer to ungarter myself. Jeeves reappeared with my slippers before I'd even got one trouser leg all the way up, and he bent down to do the job for me, swift as ever, but I shivered at his fingers dragging over my calves and ankles.

"Your feet are cold, sir." He pressed each one briefly betwen warm hands before the application of slippers. Cold the toes may have been, but I suddenly felt warmed through by such a singularly—intimate? was that it?—act. "You should get into a hot bath, sir," he said as he stood up.

"What about you?" I was a trifle dazed. "Catching your death in wet clothes looking after me?"

"I am fairly dry, sir, having refrained from unsheltered forays into the downpour." It was chiding, yes, but dashed if there wasn't a bit of 'oh, _you_ ' about it if you knew how to read the inkling of a smirk.

Into the ordered bath I went, too tired and grateful for the soothing water for _le corps_ to get up to any funny business despite all this pressing of feet. My usual nighttime whiskey, once I was chased off to bed, was served hot and with a dash of something sweet and spicy that was, naturally, just the thing to complete the journey to sleepy contenment. I remained conscious long enough to ask what time we were starting out, and to agree to something about a hired car and a leisurely pace to view any sights along the way, before biffing soundly off to the land of Nod.

We set out after an early luncheon, but as sights along the way went, there was not much. Jeeves had, to my delight, come prepared with reading material, and serenaded me with the dulcet tones of a popular mystery that had to be causing him pain. It was the sort of thing I liked, not the sort of thing he liked. Hence the delight: when one's o. of adoration does something purely for one's pleasure, one's outlook is bound to be brightened.

"'And I could hear,'" Jeeves read, in the gruffish voice he'd been using for the MP whose opponent had been done in, "'as close as if it were on top of me, a voice in the walls. You'll think me mad, Inspector, but I swear upon my honour it was humming! The most sinister tune seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and I chilled as though someone had walked across my grave!'"

I interrupted, having solved the case. "Well, there you are! Sliding panels in the walls, secret passageways, that's how the murderer got out of a locked room with no windows. That bit earlier about the butler singing to himself as he polished the silver— he's your murderer!" It wasn't that I was so awfully good at solving mysteries, simply that I'd read more than my fair share and knew how these things went. I doubt I would even have noticed the bit about the singing butler had I not drifted off to ponder what Jeeves's singing might sound like, were he to do any.

"Indeed, sir? I rather suspect the secretary."

"He is a bit fishy, isn't he? It could be the humming's meant to throw us off the scent. Or we could both be right— the secretary had the butler do it."

"Murder his own employer, sir?" It was, I hoped, said with at least a splash of genuine disbelief.

"When you put it that way I rather think I should start sleeping with one eye open."

"Not at all, sir."

"Well, thank goodness for that. But this late unlamented would-be MP sent at least one maid a day crying from the room. I shouldn't be shocked if his whole staff wouldn't have minded doing the job. I say! What if the butler was about to be sent packing with no reference, like the chappie Sherlock Holmes catches in 'The Muskrat Thingamabob?'"

"'The Musgrave Ritual,' sir?"

"That's the beggar. Well, he'd never get any more work if that happened, would he, so he decided to shut the old tyrant up for good."

"Perhaps, sir. Do you wish me to continue?"

"Not unless you're just riveted, Jeeves. I can finish it later."

"Thank you, sir."

A thing I'd often wondered on, most especially in recent times, but had never thought to just ask popped into my mind, and timidly, I popped it to Jeeves in turn. "Jeeves, are you— that is to say, I'm all right as employers go, aren't I? I mean, you're more or less content?"

"Were I not, sir, I would not have requested your assurance that my situation was to be a permanent one."

He had indeed, and what's more had reminded me of it a few times. I hadn't _known_ when he'd asked, of course. If he asked the same thing now I'd likely have fainted with joy. "Well, good, then. But you know, just because you've declared yourself signed up for life doesn't mean I shouldn't try to— well, I mean, you know, if there's anything that could stand improving, say the word and I'll do my best to see it's improved."

"Nothing springs immediately to mind, sir, but I thank you for your consideration."

A less-upstanding chap would have taken the opening and demanded a pay rise and more holidays, which made me all the more inclined to find something he wanted. "Not a thing? Not even something frivolous you don't strictly need but would make it all a bit nicer?"

He shot me a rummy look, or I thought he did; hard to tell with eyes mostly on the road and all. "Nothing it would be— nothing, sir."

"No, you were about to say something. 'Nothing it would be' what? Possible to get? I suppose we must draw the line at your very own unicorn or Mona Lisa, but if it's within my powers as a mere mortal, consider it done." I couldn't think what he'd be so hesitant to ask for, unless it was the very thing I'd forbidden myself to ask for, but it couldn't be that. Unicorns in Berkeley Square were more likely.

"I will...consider requesting it, sir."

"Oh, come now, Jeeves. You can't leave a chap in suspense like that." It'd do my head in hoping and wondering, for one thing. "Out with it, I insist."

He outed with it. He was quick to assure me that what he had was more than good enough, but in mind of frivolous luxury he wouldn't mind some new furnishings in his lair. Furniture, I say! What did he take me for that such a simple thing would be ridiculous and impossible? What on earth did that say about me? I was very nearly angry, and had to clench the jaw a bit to keep from shouting, "Of course you can have it. I can't believe you'd think I would say no."

"On the contrary, sir. I knew you would not. I have no wish to take advantage of your generous nature, for as I have stated, the present furnishings are more than adequate."

"Take advantage? You're not taking advantage! If anything I take advantage of you seventeen times a day!"

"I assure you that you do nothing of the sort, sir."

While it might've seemed on the surface that all was s. and done, the atmosphere had chilled a few degrees and continued to have a distinct offishness to it. Oh, Jeeves made the requisite polite conversation, but he seemed distant. I kept trying to draw him out, to no avail.

"This cottage we're taking," I tried, "it's got all the modern conveniences?"

"Purportedly, sir."

When it became clear he was not going to describe said mod cons along with a history of the village as he might ordinarily have done, I said lamely, "Ah. Good."

I tried a funny story, I tried mangling Shakespeare so he'd correct me, I even sang the praises of a green and purple tie I'd seen in a shop window, but he never said more than a couple of words to any of it. It was like pulling teeth, really, and I don't mean for a qualified dental surgeon.

"Do you think dental surgeons use the phrase 'like pulling teeth' the way the rest of us do, or in place of something like 'a piece of cake?'" I mused aloud, having decided it no longer mattered what I drivelled on about if I could keep the stiff silence at bay.

"I'm sure I don't know, sir."

"Because cake is probably a very bad thing to a dentist, while pulling teeth is...well, a piece of cake. Doesn't some relation of yours work in a dentist's surgery?" I'd gone there once with a toothache on his recommendation.

"My cousin Penelope, sir. I will ask her when next I see her."

"Right, the secretary. You seem to have about three thousand cousins, Jeeves. It's a wonder you can keep track of them."

"It is helpful that I have known them all for some time, sir."

"Yes, it would be. I suppose I'll meet more of them at the wedding. Biffy and Mabel's, I mean."

"Provided Mr Biffen does not forget the engagement in the intervening weeks, sir."

"I say! That's awfully rough, and untrue on top of it." I knew he was no great aficionado of Biffy, but remarks of such an outright cutting nature were not normally his style. "She's the one thing he always remembers. Perhaps not every last detail, and there'll certainly be an army of us making sure he remembers what day it is and where to go, but that she exists and that he loves her he most certainly remembers! The love of one's life does not slip easily from the mind, Jeeves." Oh, how well I knew that.

"No, sir." No arguing of his point, no explanation of what he'd meant by rather insulting Biffy, nothing.

I could stand it no longer, or perhaps sit it, since sitting I was. "Is something wrong, Jeeves?" I demanded.

"No, sir."

"What if I said I know you better than that and don't believe you?"

"Then you shall have to disbelieve, sir."

"Look, if I've done something—"

"You have done nothing, sir."

"Because if I have, you should tell me. I know you gladly suffer a great deal of foolishness on my part, but it is not some duty of yours to sit idly by whilst I insult you."

"I am not insulted, sir."

"Fine," I said wearily, seeing he would not budge.

We rolled along for a stiff few miles, during which I tried to puzzle out what on earth had brought on this bout of frosty aloofness. It had all been going rather nicely until the bit about the furniture, but I could make h. nor t. of why that would upset him so.

I stopped at the next garage, which were few and far out here and had to be availed when come upon if one wanted petrol and wished to avoid a very long walk. I left Jeeves to tangle with the fellow manning the pumps and slouched into the little shop, hoping a brief separation would be enough to put him right, since if it wasn't there was no bally point in locking ourselves away in some rural shack.

This shop was something of an oddity, as shops at these country roadsides tend to be, the usual postcards and sweets and maps amongst greengroceries, souvenir ash-trays and misshapen jumpers, all sort of mashed together without much rhyme or reason.

"Bertie! What are you doing here?"

I blinked in befuddlement. The establishment apparently also traded in Glossops, to my utmost chagrin. "What ho, Honoria. Holidaying. Pausing for a spot of petrol and humbugs. The usual sort of thing. One could ask you the same."

"Oh, a friend of Daphne's has a castle or something out this way. We're going shooting." The thought of Honoria with a rifle rather withered the insides. "I'd heard you were in Paris, though."

"We were. Fancied a bit of country air and fewer artists for a spell. You know."

"Well, you should pop up to this chateau, massive party we're getting up. Plenty of room."

"Oh, I don't think so. You've seen me shoot." I moved away to settle up my purchases, but my protest fell on deaf ears and she followed.

"Here," she said, picking a postcard off a rack, "this is the one. Come Saturday."

"Impossible, I'm afraid. My physician has ordered me not to hold a rifle for at least the next three months."

"Oh, you old silly!" She gave a playful shove that only barely missed sending me flying into the jumpers. "Of course you can."

"I cannot. I shall not. I think I even must not. Give my best to the ducks or whatever you're killing. Tinkerty-tonk." I gave her a tip of the _chapeau_ and waited no longer for the aged shopkeeper to finish counting out my change. I beat a quick path out and over to Jeeves, interrupting his conversation with _le pumpeur._ "Are we petrol'd, Jeeves?"

"Yes, sir—"

"Good. Hop in and let's go, I've been Glossoped."

"Glossoped, sir?" he asked as he climbed in and I lead-footed it out of there. "Would that interesting verb refer to Miss Honoria Glossop, by any chance?"

"Indeed it would, Jeeves. She's headed for some shooting party at a castle and practically dragged me there bound and trussed in the boot of her car."

"I see. When will you be joining the party, sir?"

"I won't, Jeeves."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Don't sound so surprised. I am capable of doing as I bally well please once in a while. Hang all Glossops, say I. I issued a cold _nolle prosequi_ and an adieu, and that was that. I don't view it as a letting-down of pals, for Honoria is no pal of mine, and I think we've proven time and again that she's in no danger of feeling slighted where I'm concerned. No, I have not trod over the Wooster Code. I simply don't want to go shooting, dash it. It's like being on the way to get an ice cream and having someone offer you a lemon tart. The ice cream lays but two hours ahead and no tart will dissuade me from the plotted course." Perhaps tarts hadn't been the best confections to go with. "Not that I'm implying anything about Miss Glossop's virtue, you understand. Merely a metaphor."

"Of course, sir. But I believe you mean a simile."

There! That was my Jeeves, back at it at last. I beamed. My nip into the shop had done some good after all. In mind of which, I reached in my pocket and extracted the peace offering I'd procured while within, a package of the liquorice pastilles he seemed to favour. "Got you these, by the by."

"Thank you sir," he said solemnly.

After a final stopover for provisions in the last decent-sized town and a peek in at the landlord's for the key, we rolled up—rather far up—to our cottage about teatime. It was an ivy-covered stucco affair sat high atop the hills above some quaint village whose name contained far too many z's and h's for my taste but which sounded rather musical when Jeeves pronounced it.

Not a soul could be seen nor heard for ages, just the twittering of the birds and the faint rush of water from somewhere, which Jeeves informed me was a no-more-sensibly-named river. The back door opened onto one of the terraces the French set such store by, which gave way to a downward sprawl of grass on one side and a healthy expanse of woods on the other.

The interior was equally charming, sort of bare and sturdy in that cottagey way, but cosy all the same with the promised modern labour-saving devices and even a serviceable-looking piano. The mind harkened back to Jeeves's endless telephone calls to surely half the cottage owners in the province. I'd thought I'd heard the word piano with a Gallic inflection, but at the time it hadn't really registered. But on further consideration, I realised he'd never got us any lodgings for any length of time that were not thus equipped. It was a warming thought. Equally so was the one single sitting room and one single table; any sitting or relaxing Jeeves wanted to do, he'd just jolly well have to do it right along with me.

Jeeves set about the unpacking as I shook the dust from my heels and changed into (miraculously unwrinkled as always) fresh clothes. In his infinite wisdom he'd laid out just the sort of thing for lounging about a cottage of a summer afternoon.

I ankled out to find him mixing a little pick-me-up and saw that the grey tweed ensemble he'd travelled here in had gone the way of the phonograph cylinder and been replaced by the usual morning coat. "You know, Jeeves, you're sort of on holiday, too. No need to be so formal." I'd never told him anything of the sort, not on trips round the Continent nor round the world, but seeing him out of 'uniform' held a new fascination for me.

He merely twitched a lip minutely. "I shall bear it in mind, sir."

I took my drink and went to inspect to the piano, picking out an idle scale to check it was in tune. When I turned round again, Jeeves had vanished, presumably kitchenward if one judged by the sound of running water. I've mentioned this quirk of his before, I think— this habit of washing everything down to the last fish fork upon arrival. It had mildly annoyed me when I'd first witnessed it, but I now found it endearing. Of course, these days that was the case with most Jeevesian actions, barring odd sulks in automobiles and the occasional bit of wardrobe tyranny.

I knew he was best left to his washing quirkery, so I kicked up the feet and dug back into my mystery to see how my suspicions panned out. The next thing I knew, I'd lost my vision. I sat up abruptly with a startled shout, but it turned out I'd only fallen asleep with the book over my face. Jeeves was folding a newspaper and making to get out of the armchair.

I waved him back down. "I hadn't realised I'd fallen asleep," I said. "No fits or anything like that." My drink still had a good bit of its ice, so it couldn't have been that long. I took a gulp to wash the stale taste from my mouth and noted with satisfaction that Jeeves had at least shed the morning coat. "What's going on in the world?" I indicated the paper.

"I could not say, sir. This is the village weekly. A Monsieur Clerrand is offering a reward of twenty francs for the return of his bicycle and there is an evening of traditional Breton dancing at the village hall tomorrow."

"Ah, a country dance, sort of?"

"A closer cousin to the formation dances practised in Ireland and Cornwall, sir."

"Loads of hopping about and fiddles, you mean?"

"Those are components, sir."

"And I suppose you're wanting to go, what with the local culture and all."

"If you would not be averse to my attending, sir."

I did not fail to note the saddening lack of invitation to self, but nevertheless I would not stand between Jeeves and a good time. "Of course not. It'd be your night off anyway. Attend all you like."

"Thank you, sir."

"Think nothing of it, old chap. Now what of this eventide? I confess I'm having rather a nice time being a useless layabout, but if there's something you'd like to do, by all means."

"No, sir. I thought to relax with some light reading."

"Well, that's convenient. Dinner on the terrace, perhaps, before the rain follows us here?"

"Certainly, sir, though I believe the storm was moving in an easterly fashion."

"All the better." And I thought I had better ask, lest I find myself dining solitary out-of-doors. "You'll join me, won't you?" I sounded small even to myself as I asked it.

"If you wish, sir."

 

And thusly, when the time came, did we dine.

There was a corker of a sunset and I somehow managed to talk us round to boyhood remembrances. I gave a few of my own in hopes of dragging one out of Jeeves. "Gussie swears I cheated to get that Scripture Knowledge prize, but I won it fair and square. It was maths I cheated at, but that never got me anywhere because I cribbed off Tuppy most of the time. I think I did worse than if I'd just done it on my own. I bet you took all the prizes every year, didn't you, Jeeves?"

"No, sir. Penmanship and mathematics on a number of occasions, in the short portion of my education where such distinctions were available, but certainly not all."

"Well, they probably just thought it wouldn't be fair to the other boys if you took away all of them. I'm sure you deserved them all."

"Kind of you to say so, sir."

It's worth noting that we were well into the second bot. of fine _vin_ by this point, or I might not have said quite so vigorously, "Kind, nothing! You're the cleverest person I know!"

"Thank you, sir." He looked down briefly, and surely it was just the pinkness of the sunset. One such as he would not blush under my praise, and it wasn't as though I'd never told him as much before. "I was bested for most honours by a boy called James McCreight."

"Must've cheated."

"Had he won more graciously, sir, I should not have minded, but he took great delight in lording it over me. I never could discover any cheating, however, and given his current career I am forced to believe he came by his victories honesty."

"Eh? What's he up to now, then?"

"He is a renowned medical man, sir, making great advances in the nature of infectious disease."

"Ah. Well, still, he didn't need to be so nasty about it. Bet he's learnt some manners by now. Stilton Cheesewright was horrid to me in school and now— no, wait, he's still horrid. At least he doesn't short my sheets anymore."

I think that got a bit of a chuckle out of him. "Had I ever seen him make an effort to do so, I assure you I would have prevented it, sir."

We sat out there half the night, talking over these little histories, and I daresay a good time was had by all. Jeeves unwound by slow degrees with each dose of wine, and later trips indoors for more of the stuff saw him shed some bit of the uniform. The waistcoat went, then the tie loosened before coming off, followed by the rolling up of sleeves. I found myself rather distracted by these usually unseen portions of him, but I think he took my glassy staring for inebriation.

I learned things about Jeeves I'd never thought to ask or even wondered about: that his first foray into valeting had been as a batman in the War, that he'd once written to Lillian Gish for an autograph, that he was not at all fond of dogs (this I had guessed) due to an early employer's poodle having bit him (this I had not).

I could've named piles of these little facts about everyone I knew, but up until now I could have named almost nothing about Jeeves that hadn't occurred in my direct presence. It was a bit sorry, I thought, in view of the fact that all employment and tender pash aside, I'd long considered him my most trusted friend. Then again, I couldn't have told you how Tuppy breathed or the meaning of every minute inclination of Bingo's eyebrows, so perhaps it was just a difference of association.

 

"What's so tight about owls?" I asked as I was being helped to the first floor by the steadfast and wonderfully close arms of Jeeves. "I've never met an owl that seemed as though it'd been drinking."

"A mystery of linguistics, sir."

As both bad and good luck would have it, I tripped on the last step up and Jeeves had to catch me. "Sorry," I choked, for my voice had gone rather out of order due to the sudden overabundance of Jeeves pressed full and warm against my back with both his arms round my waist.

"Careful, sir," he said, too close to my ear.

I extracted myself before I did something stupid.


	5. Fantasie Impromptu

**5\. Fantasie Impromptu**

****On the 'morrow, once the restoratives had restored me and I was no longer cursing Jeeves for looking as clean and bright as ever, I suggested a ramble and a picnic. Therefore the luncheon hour found us trekking down the hill with a hamper and a couple of fishing rods Jeeves had found in the shed. At the bottom of said hill we met with the difficultly named river (I'd had Jeeves say it four times in a row and still couldn't make anything of it), and it was there that we spread the blanket and provisions.

I'd gathered up something to read on spying the fishing equipment and I passed a pleasant digestive hour lolling about on the grass with the book while Jeeves dangled a line in the water. The mystery (the secretary had done it, by the by) held my interest less than his profile, though, and the sun was getting hotter than I'd like. "Do you suppose you'll catch anything?"

"It is rather late in the day, sir," he admitted. "Do you wish to return to the cottage?"

"No, but I was rather thinking of dipping a toe, or possibly an entire Wooster into the river, which I think would scare your fish away."

"Regrettably, sir, I packed neither towels nor your bathing costume, so you may wish to confine any dipping to the extremities." He withdrew the line, meaning he'd given up and I could cool off.

As much as I knew there was no one for miles and I could easily have a swim in the altogether without causing scandal, it had great potential for ending awkwardly, so I merely discarded the footwear and shoved the bags up to my knees. I joined Jeeves on the ledge of rock he'd been fishing from, his own legs off to one side and well away from the water, but I plunged my own in. "Ahh, much better." The ledge was just the right depth that I could lie back a bit with my head and shouders still on soft grass.

Jeeves stowed away his fishing supplies and returned to my side with a cool glass of the lemonade-and-whiskey concoction he'd dreamed up by way of slipping me something to bolster the spirits during luncheons with Aunt Agatha or similar personages who frowned upon ardent spirits. It also made the perfect refreshment for a hot afternoon. He had one for himself as well, and to my surprise had divested himself of his own shoes. Not only did he dip his feet in alongside my own, he leaned back against the bank next to me.

I dared to turn my head and steal a glance. I found he was already looking at me. "You've taken a bit of sun, sir." Merely an observation, but his voice was low and close. He produced a little pot of something from his well-stocked pockets. "If you'll permit me?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He gently smoothed the cream over my nose and cheeks with the lightest of touches. I'd had dozens of sunburns since I'd known him, but he'd only ever applied the stuff for me in places I couldn't reach. I had to remind myself to breathe.

He was done too soon, but he was still just as close, impossibly blue eyes fixed upon mine. "I think we have prevented a sunburn, sir, but you may freckle."

"Didn't you say freckles were charming?" I teased rather brazenly. "In that letter to Marion? Of course, I suppose you could have just been—" Marion did not _have_ freckles, I realised, no more than she had blue eyes. He must've seen it dawn on me, becasue his gaze dropped. How stupid I'd been. How blind. The out-of-sorts humour, the un-Jeevesian moodishness, the things he seemed to stop short of saying. I'd always known I shouldn't bother hoping, but I hadn't known it was so futile as this. He was in love with someone already, and recently so. Thinking back in my pained ponderings, I guess it dated from roughly that day I'd got locked in the lavatory. And now he felt stuck in the promise he'd made not to leave me.

"Marion never got that letter because it was never meant for her, was it?" I tried to sound understanding and steel myself against the pain his answer would cause me.

"No, sir." I could barely hear it.

"You knew I'd ask what you were writing, so you hid it in plain sight."

"Yes sir."

"I wish you'd look at me, Jeeves. I'm not angry." Not at him. At myself, perhaps.

"You are not, sir?" He did look at me as requested, all shuttered, every inch the man bracing for a blow.

"Of course not. It isn't as though you did it on purpose. I of all people know that sort of thing can't be helped. You think you're immune, or I may mean impervioius, but one day it strikes you anyhow, maybe out of nowhere, or maybe you realise it's been coming on gradually for ages."

"Sir, what are you saying?"

"That I understand. And that I won't try to stop you."

He registered definite and unmasked surprise, an absolute first. "I—"

"I know you're a man of your word, Jeeves, but I won't have you feeling stuck or trapped. But I hope you don't mind my telling you that I will miss you."

He looked...I don't know how he looked. I'd never seen that look on Jeeves before, nothing like it. It didn't resemble relieved gratitude, but possibly he was just that sincerely moved. He swallowed audibly. "I— Thank you, sir. You are reacting to this news better than I had hoped. Allow me to offer my sincerest apologies. Believe me, sir, I did try to fight it."

"You've not the least thing to be sorry for, Jeeves. Surely to move you to such prose she must truly be perfect for you."

And suddenly he was fixing me with an expression I understood pretty well: one that said, 'You have sprouted another head, and it is purple with spots on.' "Sir?"

"The girl, Jeeves! You must love her madly. I do hope she deserves you."

He blinked a few times. "Sir, you have misunderstood me entirely." His voice was flat, cold.

"Er."

He was off the ledge and back up to the bank in an instant. I scrambled up to follow him to where he was now leaning against a tree with a hand over his eyes.

"Jeeves?" I said cautiously. "What have I misunderstood?"  
   
He uncovered the baby blues, which were rather red and possibly on the moist side, but he said nothing.

"I never meant to upset you. And I wasn't saying you have to go. I just thought you'd want to. Happily ever after and all that. But I'm truly befuddled, Jeeves. What have I got wrong?"

"I believed you had realised the truth, sir. But even as you have not, I cannot deceive you any longer. I cannot bear it after this. Sometimes I have hoped in vain that my feelings were returned, even to the point of inventing evidence out of trifles."

"I know what that's like," I muttered. "But I still don't quite follow—"

"The letter was never meant to be sent, or read by anyone other than myself. It was a masochistic exercise in futility." He leaned back against the tree trunk and looked skyward. "Did you never wonder why I— No. This is folly." He looked at me, mask firmly in place. "I beg you would forget this entire conversation, sir."

"The hell I will!" 'Frustrated beyond all comprehension' did not scratch the merest surface. He couldn't confuse me to death and then expect me to go on like it was nothing, not when whatever he'd thought I thought had put him in such a state. He was allowed his secrets, surely, but I would not sit idly by while he went bottling it all up and quietly resenting me. "You can't just— So what if you're in love with some girl you can't have. I do know you're human. You're allowed to have a feeling. And perhaps I was wrong, but I thought you considered me enough in the way of a friend that you wouldn't have to hide every single one you have."

"There is no girl, sir."

"Well, then, what on earth is it?"

"If you still do not understand, sir, I would beg of you not to try."

"Jeeves, you're not making any sense." There was only one thing that would make sense, actually, but I would not—I could not—let myself believe it. All the words fit the possibility, but it was impossible. I couldn't fathom it. And the moment I allowed myself to truly believe it and was proven wrong, told once and for all that it would never be me, I wasn't sure I could bally well bear it.

"I think it would be best, sir, if I resign immediately." And he turned his face back up towards clouds entirely too fluffy for such a state of affairs.

"What? No! It was one thing when I thought you were riding off into the sunset with your one true love! Pain me though it did to let you go, you deserve to be happy. But simply handing in your portfolio because I'm too thick to understand whatever you're talking _around_ but won't explain? It won't do."

"Sir, if I explain it, you will in all likelihood demand my resignation in any case. I would much prefer to—"

"I will give you a list of the things that would cause me to make such an insane demand. It's a short list, Jeeves: violent crimes not in defence, and causing me real harm to no useful end. I don't mean bicycle rides in the rain. Is it one of those things, Jeeves?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then, you're safe. And look at me, dash it." I marched forward and gripped him by the chin, forcing him to. I won't go so far as to say there were tears in his eyes, but they did look decidedly pinker round the edges than usual. "Jeeves," I said, aching myself at the pain he seemed to be in. "I'm sorry I'm so obtuse, but you've always known that. You're going to have to tell me in no uncertain terms or we'll continue at this ridiculous impasse forever. But truly, other than that very short list, there is absolutely nothing that would make me want you to go. If you still feel you must once you've told me, I'll protest no further. But for god's sake, Jeeves, tell me."

"I hope you can forgive me, sir," he said very softly.

"Of course I—"

I was silenced by my mouth being covered. By Jeeves. Jeeves's mouth. Lips. Kiss. Kissing me. Jeeves was kissing me. Neither the lips nor the brain could recover from the am-I-dreaming shock to respond in kind before it ended. I gaped, I blinked, I stared. I sort of gurgled. Had that been real? Did I not have sunstroke?

Jeeves took a large step back, and with his eyes to the ground said, "I will depart immediately, sir. I truly am sorry." And with that, he spun on a heel and began to walk away.

Realising he'd taken my stunned and dumbstruck silence for the very worst sort rather than the very best sort spurred me to action. "No!" I hurried after him and caught his sleeve. "You can't just— did you really—"

He detached my hand and moved to continue away-ward. "Sir, I must—"

"You can't! I mean to say— that was it? The thing? Did you really just kiss me?"

"I beg you would not force me to explain in more detail, sir."

"Well, I'm afraid you must do, because I— that is, it was rather a shock to— oh, sod it." I launched myself forward and proceeded to give him the very best kiss I knew how, since words were failing me so utterly. At first he stiffened, but I'd done the same not a minute before and it most certainly hadn't meant 'stop, don't.' He had the strength to push me away if he did mean stop, so I kept at it until he he sighed against my lips and turned from stone to flesh in an instant, wrapped his arms tightly around me, and began, at last, to kiss me back properly.

It's not often a much-dreamt-of thing is all one could have hoped, but this was everything and more with double knobs on. Jeeves is good at anything he puts his mind to, and this was no exception. It was the perfect balance of rough and gentle, of soft and firm. And that thingness, that rightness I'd been searching for? It was there in spades. I didn't want it to stop, not ever; surely this was my calling in life.

It was a wrench, but after a time we parted. I shakily met his gaze, now afraid there was some catch. He'd retained some of his poise but I'm sure I looked a mess. "What is this? Is this real?" Would he disappear if I let go of him?

"I sincerely hope so, sir."

"I think in the circs we can dispense with the honorifics, can't we?"

He gently put a good six inches between us but did not vanish. "I believe this discussion might be better continued indoors."

I could practically hear him swallow the 'sir,' which was a good sign even if there was to be a discussion. We packed up the remnants of the picnic that now seemed to have occurred years ago and started back up the hill. We said nary a word and didn't even walk particularly close, and though I longed to take his hand and kept stealing nervous glances at him, he was strictly eyes-forward. Less of a good sign. Had I made a hash of it as usual? Was kissing me terrible? Had I dribbled? Was the rightness so very _there_ on my end notably absent on his?

I was a raw nerve by the time Jeeves poured us both a stiff one in the sitting room. At least he sat down without my telling him to, and at least it was next to me. I took a fortifying gulp when I realised he was waiting for me to speak. "Whatever you want, Jeeves," I said.

"Sir?"

"Bertie," I corrected none too gently. "Or Bertram, or 'you fathead' if you like, but for pity's sake, not 'sir,' not now."

"Bertie." Hearing it at last sent the old heart singing, despite all the what-ifs and wherefores that yet hung in the balance. "What do you mean, whatever I want?"

"I mean precisely that. Whatever you want is what is to be. The fate of whatever we've embarked upon is in your hands." I could not declare, could not request. If the fate was mine to decide I'd never forgive myself if he went along with it merely because he thought he ought to. A slim chance, I grant, but I had to know with all certainty that it was all free will on his part.

"Very well," he said, pausing for a breath and what looked to be a fortifying gulp of his own. "It cannot, you understand, be undone."

"Point of no return, you mean."

"Precisely. I cannot and will not pretend that what has transpired in the past half hour has not occurred."

"No, I wouldn't want you to."

"I see two choices. I depart immediately, or we pursue what has begun, risking that it may end badly."

"But it may not!"

"The risk to reputation, to liberty itself, is considerable."

"If we were caught, you mean." I hadn't thought that one through, but it wasn't a pleasant notion.

"Even mere suspicion with no concrete evidence could lead to ruin. Threats, blackmail. We would be constantly on our guard."

"Everyone already knows how highly I think of you, Jeeves— I say, should I be calling you—"

"Jeeves will do."

"Right ho. You're irreproachable, and I know I'm generally an open book, but I have got some idea of what one shouldn't shout from the rooftops." I was beginning to understand how Lloyd George might have felt at Versailles; the whole business was beginning to read like some sort of negotiation. Worse still, it sounded as though Jeeves was trying to talk the both of us out of it. I couldn't do anything that might force his hand, but neither could I sit by while he convinced himself to give it up as a bad job. "I'm willing to risk it if you are."

"Are you?" he asked, a trifle sharply. "Would you give up everything? Your friends, your money, your home? The day could come when the choice would be between leaving all of that behind at a moment's notice, or a swift and complete severance."

Not a nice choice, but it came down to giving up everything or giving up Jeeves, there was no choice at all. "I'd rather— what's that bit about sitting on pumpkins?"

"The poet Thoreau referred to solitude when he said, 'I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.'" There was a clear air of 'well, what on earth has that got to do with anything?' about it.

"Oh. I was remembering it wrong. But the general sentiment still applies, minus the solitude. Better a pumpkin with you than cushions without. You don't honestly think I'd throw in the towel at the first sign of trouble?"

"Such threats have moved the best of men to far worse actions."

"Well, not I," I said firmly. "You must know I'm nothing without you. But," I felt I had to make clear, "as devastated as I would be, if you truly want to leave, today or some dark day in the future, I will only ever speak of you with glowing praise. I don't want you staying because you're afraid of what I'll do if you don't, now or ever. I don't know how I can prove—"

"Your word is more than enough." He reached over and clasped my hand.

It might also have been that Thoreau fellow with the line about the pumpkin who said something about feeling as though one had burst into blossom. Whoever said it, it spoke very aptly of what my entire being was now doing as I looked on him with wonder and did, indeed, see a great heart behind the great brain. My own heart swelled, my blood raced, my eyes teared. All sorts of things that sounded medically very dangerous occurred as Jeeves released my hands and gathered me up to kiss me with what might be called great abandon.

I abandoned right back. If the architects of modern civilisation had had their own Jeeveses to kiss, we'd all be just about getting round to the secret of fire in a week or two. It was even better than the first had been, because now I had some assurance I was going to get to do it again— often, if I had anything at all to say about it. No looming discussion to dread, no misunderstood letters, no vanishing. The utter joyous _there_ ness of him.

My hands couldn't make up their minds where to go—his silky hair, his powerful shoulders, his broad back—and as they had no minds at all they fluttered and skimmed over everything they could reach. His were more settled: one stroking at the back of my hair, the other pressed between my shoulder blades.

Behind all this joyous abandonment there also built what can only be called need. Well, there are multitudes of other things to call it, but I can't put any of them down without a distinct sense of cheapening the thing, because while that n. became more urgent with each passing second, there was volume upon volume more to it than mere base appetites. Not that base appetites are anything to be scoffed at, and scoffing was the furthest thing from my mind when Jeeves pulled me astride his lap.

My first reaction upon coming into contact with the evidence of equal (well, possibly a bit larger) need on his side was a very base one indeed. I could not but press myself against it, but quite aside from the pleasure of it was what I suppose was this thingness that I keep making reference to. Knowing that I affected him this way, knowing that the moaning sound that rumbled up through his chest to meet with the one I made in a hum between our lips was caused by me and me alone— it was a heady marvelling thing that put me in mind of his remarks about music and souls and quite surpassed anything earthly.

When he rocked up against me in such a way that I threw my head back and cried out, Jeeves applied those miraculous lips to my throat, and I'd honestly had no idea there were such places on it. Before I knew what was happening, I was borne upwards with one swift strong motion. I believe I might have said something terribly manly like 'eek,' but I was ably carried from the room and deposited onto a bed almost before it occurred to me I ought to hang on.

What followed was a great deal of rolling about and unfastening of fastenings, punctuated by the exploration of the new spots revealed, and if I'd been surprised at the number of places on my neck that liked to be kissed, the quantity of similar ones elsewhere was simply staggering. I think anywhere on me would probably have liked to be kissed if it was Jeeves doing the kissing, but there were certain ones that were decidedly better than others, ones I'd never have thought of in a million years.

The insides of my wrists, for one, came as a particular surprise.  And while I'd noticed in the course of the previous pale imitation of this experience that nipples upon the m. of the s. served no other purpose I could find than to bring about a good feeling when faced with the charms of a gently-administered bit of biting (and possibly for Adam not to look silly next to Eve), I'd never known it could feel quite like _this._

I made my own discoveries. Most notable was that Jeeves, for all his politeness and deference in daily life, had no qualm whatever about taking the reins of the proceedings, as illustrated by the lifting and depositing of Woosters, but also by the guiding of the lips and hands of Woosters where he wanted them to go. For this, I was grateful, for I lack that intrepid Viking spirit of his that causes one to lick such extraordinary things as navels.

We did not long tarry over all this discovering. Despite how I've drawn it out, it was merely a very brief stop on the sprint down the road to lying in a tangle of limbs and discarded trousers with all those yards of glorious golden skin laid out against mine. Quick though the journey was, by the time we were there at last, I was half-mad with clutching at him and shameless writhing, because I wanted more of it, now, but I didn't know where to begin. "I— I want—"

"Only name it," said Jeeves, looking down at me with eyes half-shut and sultry but sharp as ever and searching for clues.

"Anything. Everything. Just— something, soonish."

"I am experiencing a similar sense of urgency." He illustrated his point with a renewed press of said urgency against me, which has a pleasing result for my own...urgency.

"Ah. This—" he did it again, rather more deliberately—"this'll do for a—" he got one of those blessedly capable hands between us, moved a bit to one side, and I never did manage to finish what I was saying since he was already miles ahead of me as always. Just the feel of him, of that, there— _oh._ Mere seconds and I was utterly done in, what would've been quite a shout muffled into Jeeves's kiss.

As I lay there trembling and starry-eyed, Jeeves looking down at me with a suspicion of a smile playing at the corners of reddened lips, I realised it had all gone a bit too quickly and that as done in as I'd been, he was not. I felt a bit like the chap who's sat down and dug into the first course while everyone else is still standing and waiting— that is, a bit greedy and oafish.

My mumbled apologies were dismissed as unecessary, and it was really a bit lucky for me it had happened this way. Now I could give my full and undivided attention, both to my task and to the singular spectacle that is Jeeves coming slightly unhinged. It's a thing to behold, all the more so for my certainty that I was among a small and élite number who ever got to see anything other than the statuesque serene calm for any reason, and that I'd be seeing it again. I didn't like to think I wasn't the only one to have seen it for precisely this reason—his expertise made it seem unlikely—so I put it from my mind.

His eyes alternated between fluttering closed—and yes, that had been a flutter rather than a blink in the erstwhile nightclub—and looking fixedly into mine, his mouth slightly open and breathing uneven breaths, not making much at all in the way of sound until he clutched at me and said, "Oh. God," almost as if it surprised him.

No sooner was I wondering what to do with my decidedly sticky hand than he set upon me with a veritable torrent of deep, sweet kisses that slowly faded into simply holding me, nimble fingers dancing ticklishly up and down my spine.

"I've not hurt you?" Jeeves asked at length as he gently removed the worst of the mess with a handkerchief apparently conjured out of thin air.

"'f course not," I mumbled into the side of his neck, where my head fit so perfectly that the spot should have been labelled 'place Wooster bean here.' I kissed the skin nearest my lips for good measure, simply because I could. We lay there for some time, not really moving or saying much. I, for one, was basking, but when I at last dragged the old onion upwards, Jeeves had the look of one lost in thought. "What are you thinking about?" I asked, now a bit nervous that said thoughts could be of the 'second' variety.

"The night we danced," he answered, brushing some bit of something from my cheek or perhaps just touching it.

"Er. I should probably make a confession on that score."

"Oh?" He seemed unbothered.

"The first you heard of that wager was the first I'd heard of it. Lisette worked me out and decided to help. I'd never have forced you into it, but now I don't mind telling you that up until today it was just about the best five minutes of my life."

"And mine," he said with a small and—I thought—fond smile.

"So, then, that letter...."

"Was meant for you, though I never intended for you to read it."

"What a pair of prize idiots we are! Not that I'd ever call you an idiot! Just, to think that all this time, I never knew, you never knew, and we would've just carried on never knowing _ad infini_ -whatsit. I mean, wouldn't we? Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I considered it on several occasions but each time thought the better of it, having convinced myself that my hope for some sign that you would be receptive was colouring my perception."

"Hah, I was doing the same thing, you know. That's what I was really asking you about on the ferry, which forced me to conclude you'd be swiftly out the door if I ever told you I—" I realised at this point that with all these confessions being bandied about, I'd left out one extremely important one. Even in view of recent activities, I was oddly nervous, for I'd never got to the point of saying such a thing to anybody other than in familial fondness.

I didn't truly think Jeeves would react unfavourably, but it was still bally nervewracking. What if it came out all wrong? But was there really a wrong way? I pushed myself up on an elbow and looked down at him, tucking a lock of adorably mussed hair behind his ear. "You know, don't you, Jeeves, that I love you absolutely madly?"

He cracked one of those rare smiles I hoped I'd be seeing a lot more of in the near f. "I had formed a suspicion, but it is gratifying to hear." He tugged me downwards, I thought for the kiss such proceedings are customarily sealed with, but stopped a few inches short with the result that I could look nowhere but his eyes. "I do not love easily," he said. "But when that emotion takes hold of me I am consumed by it. That I can say freely and without hesitation that I love you with every breath in me is a terrifying elation, and that you can return even a fraction of it brings me boundless joy."

"More than a fraction," I breathed, and moved beyond better words, the only thing in my power was to descend into the previously expected kiss, doing my very damnedest to pour into it all I lacked the elo-whosit to say.

If the earlier frenzied meetings of lips had been a mad dash to a much-anticipated fete, this current one might've been a moonlit stroll through a flourishing garden— a ramble and a conversation, the journey and not its end being foremost, exploring and taking in the scenery. Needless to say, Jeeves never made it to his dance, but assured me he did not mind in the least.

Dinner was supper by the time we got round to having any, and I think it does me a credit that Jeeves did not so much as hint at dressing for the occasion, or in fact even leaving the bed other than to throw together a cold spread and champagne, topped off by slices of green juicy pears which he fed to me in between kissing the juice from my lips. It was all frightfully decadent, and I think we both spent the entire time grinning rather soppily at each other.

Jeeves did take the tray back out when we were done, but he wasn't gone long enough to have done much more than bung it down in the kitchen. That brought up a thought. "Jeeves," I said when he returned, "It strikes me as not quite right for you to be waiting on me now that...." I made an encompassing gesture to indicate the whole posish, since I wasn't actually sure of the word for what we were.

"When Bingo's uncle married his cook, she didn't just carry on toiling away at the stove." Oh, that hadn't come out very well at all. "Not that you're the wife in all this, of course! I mean, you're the one earning an honest living here, but that brings me back to my point. There's something just sort of not cricket about me...well, paying you. I know it's not for this—" I waved my hand again— "but—"

"Bertie." Thank heavens he stopped me before I got out something even stupider. "While I find it commendable that you would have some scruple in that regard, I fear there is nothing for it. It will be necessary—imperative—to keep up the appearance that you are only my employer. There would be no other way to explain my constant presence."

Of course he was right. "Still, when there's no one about but the two of us, I could at least lift a finger now and then." Not that I had the first idea how to lift said finger towards domestic chores without starting a fire, but wasn't it only fair?

"I am sure we can arrive at some satisfactory compromise," Jeeves said, but he was presently much more interested in rubbing the hem of the kimono, which I'd thrown on in his absence, up and down my thighs. "This was given selfishly, I confess," he said. "I wanted you to feel the silk against your skin and think of me."

"Mission— oh—" he slid his hands up my sides and over my chest— "mission accomplished." I'd never be able to so much as look at the thing without remembering this.

We very much needed the bath we eventually both squeezed into, which prompted me to declare we'd be getting a bigger one at home. Bathing was followed by well earned and sated—if reluctant, for who wants to watch the curtain fall on such a day?—sleep.

The next morning I found the wrench in the works. I was awakened at some unholy pre-dawn hour by the stirring of my bedmate. It was certainly a thing of wonder, waking up next to Jeeves, but did it really have to be so bally early? I told him as much, though it came out more in mumbles and grunts than words.

"It is my custom to rise at this hour," Jeeves replied.

"Surely you can be late this once," I garbled, throwing a leg over his hip to keep him in place.

He conceded for roughly an hour, according to the clock, before proceeding to wake me again in a far more pleasant manner. I thought at first that I was having a very good dream until I peeled open the peepers and found that his blessed wonderful mouth was indeed right where I'd been imagining. Jeeves apparently noticed me taking my place amongst the waking, for he pulled his head up and fixed me with a dashed devilish smirk. "I thought I should make myself useful if I was to remain here," he said, and who knew he had it in him to be coy!

"Carry on," I said weakly.

Carry on he did. I thought to wonder, in the course of these ministrations, what had become of Jeeves's right hand (the left being very pleasurably engaged in aiding his mouth), and when I saw where it was it nearly turned me inside-out. I've long been of the 'less talking, more doing' school of thought in these matters, not least because I feel a right ass putting words to such acts, so it's a testament to how far gone I was that without a moment's hesitation I said in one run-together rush, "Ohgodletmewatchyou."

He obliged me, no smirk this time as he sat up so that I could see every little grip and strain. His left hand continued in the line of what it had been doing, but I'm not sure it would've mattered if he hadn't touched me at all. I've seen works of art, great ones, but when faced with such a sight, Da Vinci and Michelangelo could just as well pack up and pop off, as far as it concerned me.

I couldn't decide whether to look at his eyes or his hand or the whole picture. His eyes were fixed on me whenever I looked, so unmasked and filled with such heat, my own adoration reflected for all the w. to see, though fortunately they were not watching. His hands moved with their usual nimble grace and purpose, up and down and I think he was rather putting on a bit of a show for me.

It was above and beyond art, especially when he went shaky and frantic and called my name between oath and endearment, tipping me into a shouting climactic blindness that had the backs of my eyelids looking like Van Gogh had been at them.

After the requisite cleaning-up and basking, I let him out of bed without protest and caught a few more winks. I nearly laughed when he greeted me with tea at a less-galling hour, like it was any other morning, fully dressed and impeccably groomed. The application of lips to my neck and cosying in next to me was not so usual, but I hoped it would become an unbreakable habit.

Though I'll always hold the place very dear to the h., I can't describe much of Brittany. Barring the promised ramble through Carnac, the picturesque countryside outside the direct environs of the cottage was left fairly neglected. We kept to the house and garden, I think both reluctant to allow the world to intrude any more than it had to.

The only times there was a 'decent' distance between us for any length found me at the piano while Jeeves read on the sofa, but he'd eventually abandon his book and come to join me on the bench. Once he even made a sort of game of it, seeing just how much he could do to me before I played a wrong note and gave up.

It was wonderful, in the first class of lovestruck soppiness, and it had to end. Monday afternoon found us motoring back to Paris. We were both a bit quiet, both knowing that the day-to-day of it all would intrude once more into the cocoon we'd fixed around ourselves. I barely let go of Jeeves's hand the entire way.


	6. Ticking Off Stinker

**6\. Ticking Off Stinker**

****"Well," I said when we'd fetched up at the Paris res. and stowed the luggage. "At least it's Paris. Nobody will be too bothered what we do provided we mind where it gets done. And at least we won't have to hide anything from Marion and Lisette. Actually, I rather think they'll be pleased."

"Indeed," Jeeves said, and produced a telegram from the box on the door.

"Blast." Nobody knew we'd gone away, so it could've been there for days. "Well, read it."

"It arrived a few hours ago, apparently. It is from Miss Byng."

"Stiffy? What can she want? This had better not be about kilts."

He perused the thing a moment, and his eyebrows nearly went up into his hair before fixing into a deep frown. "She writes: 'Harold gravely ill and asking for you. Return at once Totleigh Towers.'"

"Good lord." I sat down, or rather sort of fell onto a luckily placed chair.

I was no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could draw a few conclusions. One, Stinker would truly have to be in a very bad way for such a telegram to be sent to anyone. Two, he had not so much got over these erstwhile feelings of his toward self, and three, he must be steadily knocking at death's door to care little enough what anyone would think of him asking for me, which rather strengthened point two.

Where Jeeves might once have continued to hover, he now came and wrapped me in a comforting embrace. I wondered if I should tell him my conclusions and the history behind them, but decided it didn't matter just now.

"I suppose we'd better go, then," I said morosely. Worried as I was for Stinker, I didn't want to leave. I would, of course, but it felt rather like having the rug yanked out from under me just when I'd begun to settle in. I scolded myself not a little bit; it was heartless to be mourning the temporary loss of my own pleasures when I might shortly be mourning the loss of a very dear friend.

Jeeves had me on the next train out, promising to follow with the car and luggage as soon as he could. Making the journey alone was the last thing I wanted, but some haste is due in such circs.

Jostled and feeling rather grimy, I was met at what in Totleigh-in-the-Wold passed for a train station by an equally dishevelled and somewhat red-eyed Siffy. "Stiffy, old girl," I greeted with sympathy. "You needn't have come. I could've made it up on my own."

"I needed to _do_ something, Bertie," she said, her voice bearing the strain of one who's done a good deal of crying. "It's all just sitting and waiting and nothing doing any good. Uncle Watty's been very nice, but you know he's not the comforting sort, and Maddie's in the middle of the ocean somewhere." Honeymooning with Spodecup, presumably. "Even if I got a cable to her she'd never make it back in time. So it's just been me and Uncle Watty and the doctor and an army of servants all acting like nothing's wrong. Where's Jeeves?"

I don't know if she thought Jeeves could fix this or if she was simply wondering. "Packing up the kit back in Paris. We'd just got back from Brittany and I more or less turned round and left again directly."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Think nothing of it." I put her firmly into the passenger seat of Sir Watkyn's car, despite her clear intention to drive, and attempted to look on the bright side. "Still, Stinker can't be too bad off if he can tell you who he wants to visit him." I didn't so much believe this, but it was all the silver lining I could muster.

"He was full of morphine and out of his head," she said flatly. "He also called out for his mother and brother, who can't exactly come back to life and turn up, but you could, so I thought why not. I could use a friend myself." And with a sob she added, "Bertie, I really think he's going to die."

"Oh, now. Don't talk that way. Stinker's made of far sterner stuff than that. What's the matter with him, anyway?"

"They don't know," she sniffed. "He'd been visiting a family whose baby had scarlet fever, but his fever went, so they say it isn't that. We all had to go about in masks for days before the doctor decided it wasn't catching, but they still don't know what it is. He says everything hurts and can't even have a light on because it makes him sick. And now this morning he can't feel half his face. He's dying little by little right before my eyes and nobody can do a god-damned thing about it!"

Any more and she might've needed a doctor herself, but I'd rolled up in front of Totleigh Towers. Stiffy took several deep breaths, quite visibly bottling it all back up.

"It won't do to lose hope," I said. "He's never given up on you."

"Even when I was horrid to him," she sniffed.

"Come, now. No sense making it worse by throwing blame around. From the sound of it, it's quite bad enough on its own. Telling him to go and boil his head once or twice didn't make him sick. What ho, Butterfield." With that I handed off the car and led the sniffling Stiffy inside by the elbow.

"Do you want to see him now or go up to your room first?" she asked.

"Well, under the circs I don't suppose he'll mind if I'm not altogether fresh as a daisy. Might even take it as a show of solidarity, what?"

Stiffy laughed a bit, I think in spite of herself because she stopped it short and looked guilty.

"Look here," said I, feeling I knew a thing or two about conducting oneself in the company of the ailing. When my poor mother was in the process of shuffling off the mortal coil, there had been a strict rule of keeping a stiff upper lip and a sunny disposish anywhere near the patient. "If you go about like he's dying, he'll think he is, and won't trouble himself not to. Business as usual and never mind the mumps, that's the stuff for the troops."

"I'm trying," Stiffy sighed. "But after a week of worse and worse, it's hard to keep up. Why do you think I was so quick to drag you back here the moment he mentioned you? The most violent bad feeling you ever have is mild annoyance."

I was indeed mildly annoyed at the supposition. It's not that I've got great unplumbed depths or anything like that, but I do bleed if pricked, as the fellow said. "That I let on, Stiffy," I said seriously.

"Well, all right, but it's the same to anyone looking."

"Unfortunately, your ailing affianced is one of the few who can tell the difference," I said, leaving her to make of that what she would. "Still, best foot forward and all that." I put it forward through the door.

The room was just this side of pitch-dark. I recognised it as one of the music salons pressed into service as a sickroom, the piano covered with a sheet and propping up all sorts of bottles and bowls. In the centre of it was a bed that contained an unmoving lump I assumed to be the man himself.

"Harold, I've brought Bertie," Stiffy announced, her voice so high with false cheer it was a wonder the windows didn't crack.

The lump stirred slightly and went, "Mmph."

"What ho, Stinker," I said as airily as I could in so not-airy a place.

"Mmph," went the lump.

The shadowy outline of Stiffy shrugged helplessly. "I've been sitting there sort of blathering at him," she whispered. "The doctor says it helps."

I considered the armchair pulled up to the bed, but went the other direction in the end to peel up an edge of the sheet from the business end of the piano and seat myself there. I dug back into the memory for something he'd like and set to it as softly as I could in case noise had the same effect as light.

I have no particular fondness for 'Goodbye My Coney Island Baby,' not least because it's hardly worth it for one chap to sing it all alone, but he'd begged me to learn it, and learn it I had, so well that years later I could still play it in the dark.

Stiffy's shadow held itself in a sceptical way, but a verse or so in, the lump began to slowly stir, and by the end of it had transformed into a greyish formation of a nearly-sitting-up Stinker. Thus spake it: "You hate that song." The statement was slurred and slow, but a vast improvement on 'mmph.'

"Yes, but you like it, and as you're feeling poorly I thought it only sporting."

"I always loved it when you'd play for me."

"Well, I'm at your disposal."

I'm not sure he even knew Stiffy was there. "I'll go fetch some more music, shall I?" she said, and I was glad she'd announced herself again before he might've said something he'd rather not say in front of her.

"No use, old girl," I said. "Can't see a thing. But I'd be much obliged if you'd find somebody to bring me a glass of something."

"Of course. Harold, dear, do you need anything?"

"No, darling," he said. "You should rest." There was more than a slur, I realised— more in the way of a lisp, like he had a wad of cotton shoved in his cheek. Stiffy let out a bitterish sort of 'hah.' "Please, Stephanie, you've barely left this room. I could never forgive myself if you got sick, too, because you've run yourself down."

"Fine," she said. "Bertie, send for me if anything— if you need me." She pressed a kiss to Stinker's beleaguered brow and trudged off.

I noticed he shielded his eyes against the light when the door opened, and I also saw for the first time how terrible he really looked. He was ashen and drawn, and one side of his face was all droopy, which I suppose accounted for the cottony speech.

"I'm so glad you came, Bertie," he said when she'd gone.

"Friend in need and all. I wouldn't be anywhere else."

There was a tap at the door, proving to be one of Butterfield's minions with a tray. Apparently Stiffy had ordered sandwiches as well as half the contents of a bar. The nurse followed the chappie in with some broth I assumed was for Stinker. "He needs to 'ave that, sir," the nurse told me, indicating the bowl, and she clearly meant to come pour it into him, not the sort of indignity I thought he'd stick lightly.

"I'll see to it," I assured.

"Don't let him drink it too fast, sir," she said. "Else it'll just come right back up."

I think I hid my grimace pretty well, and my back was to Stinker anyway. "Thank you, er—"

"Mrs Oster, sir, but round 'ere I'm Nannie Faye."

"Right ho. Thank you, Nannie Faye." I had the inkling she was the same Nannie Faye who Stiffy had mentioned in passing once or twice in the course of comparing notes on childhoods; she was certainly the proper vintage for it.

I popped the tray on the table near the bed, and self into the chair. "Oh, not more bloody broth," Stinker grumbled.

"Well, if you'd hurry along and get better, you can have something nicer."

He sighed heavily, and there was a worrying sort of wheeze to it. "I'm not going to get better, Bertie."

"Don't talk rubbish. Of course you are. You already seem much improved on what I'd been led to expect."

"I feel like somebody's going at my joints with a rusty spoon, I can't feel half my face, and I have to sit in the dark. Who knows what'll go next."

I decided this was no time for wondering what gestures I should and shouldn't make, and reached out to take his hand. He squeezed back, but weakly. "Don't give up," I said. "Could be it all sorts itself out."

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm being punished. If this is God's wrath for my sins."

"It's also a sin to eat lobster, to borrow a phrase," I said, borrowing it from Lisette.

"I need you to do something for me, Bertie, and you're the only one I can ask."

"Name it, old egg."

"Under my bed at home, there's a strongbox. If anyone should see what's in it...."

I caught his meaning. He should've known better than to keep something like that lying about, but the sooner it was not lying about, the better for all concerned. "Worry not, it will be disposed of with all due haste."

"Thank you," he said with obv. relief. "At the funeral—"

"Hoi! There's not going to be any bally funeral, Stinker!"

"Please, Bertie. Stephanie won't hear a word of it either. I don't want people going round saying 'it's what he would've wanted.' I want somebody to actually know."

"That's all well and good, but in the—not-so-soon, by the way—end, I've got no more say than Stiffy's dog. Hadn't you better put all this down properly? I'm sure Sir Watkyn knows a thing or two."

"I don't want him having anything to do with it."

"Fine, I'll get my solicitor down here. But what's the matter with Sir Watkyn doing it?"

"What little I've got I want to go to Magdalen, to start a scholarship fund for future clergy."

"Well, that's dashed decent of you, I must say. Why on earth would he mind?"

"I think he'll see it as a slight to Stephanie. A couple of months more and it would've all gone to her."

"It's not as though she needs it. But what you want is what you want, despite the certain mootness of it all. I'll phone up to London in the morning." I patted his hand, which I was somehow still holding. "But I still say you're going to be fine."

"I wish I could believe that."

"You are," I insisted. "I've attended a deathbed vigil or two in my time and this has none of the earmarks. You're getting better, not worse. The fever's gone and now everything's just patching itself up."

A bout of friendly tenderness caused me to reach up and attempt to bring his hair out of disarray. He heaved a wheezy sigh and hummed a bit, so I indulged him, petting his hair like he was some giant clumsy cat and hoping matters stood clearly enough between us that he wouldn't take it for something it wasn't. Come to that, I wasn't sure Jeeves, had he been present, wouldn't have taken it for something it wasn't.

I was about to draw back on that thought, but a few things happened in quick succession. I felt something odd at the back of his head, a little hard spot like a scab, but also not. "What's this?" I asked, poking at it. "Does it hurt?"

"It's probably dirt," he said.

Just as I'd grasped it between my fingers, Stiffy and an elderly cove strode into the room. "The doctor's here with a new— what on earth are you doing?"

"Hang on, I've almost got it," I said, now feeling I absolutely must have something to show for this wrongish-looking state. I extracted the thing and brought it eyeward to inspect. "I say! It's some sort of bug."

"Oh, lovely, now I'm dying _and_ I've got fleas," Stinker grumbled.

The doc. came over and peered at my prisoner through a little glass. "Not fleas, Reverend," he said, looking as though all his Christmases had come at once. "That is a sheep-tick, and, I would wager, the cause of all your troubles. Medical understanding of the matter is in its infancy, but there are several sera which have proven very effective."

"You mean he'll get better?" Stiffy said, wide-eyed and hand on heart.

"It's been left very late indeed, but I am optimistic that there will be no lasting damage," said the doc.

Stiffy squealed and ploughed over not to embrace her intended, but to plant a sopping wet kiss upon the Wooster cheek. "I say!" I exclaimed.

Stinker gave me an amused look and a grateful smile, or I assumed so, for due to the palsy it came over a bit grimacey. Stiffy transferred her embrace to the more proper target, Nannie Faye crossed herself, and the doctor dropped the offending insect into a little jar. He began to explain the treatment, which was a dashed painful-sounding mercurochrome injection direct to the spine to kill off the micro-whatsits, followed by a sort of anti-venom thing if that didn't do the whole job.

I slipped out in all the rejoicing hubbub and made for the nearest telephone, hoping Jeeves was still in Paris and could stop the presses on departing since I could now simply join him again in a few days. No joy, however, and the railway co. couldn't tell me for certain if a chap fitting his particulars had bought a ticket to Calais.

I nearly resorted to having them try to find him, but the French cove on the other end seemed to be getting the impression I was after some wayward servant who'd made off with the silver. I didn't want to put Jeeves to any more trouble, so I gave it up as a bad job and resolved to await his arrival. Perhaps we could still go back to Paris. I was even feeling rather charitable toward Japan at this point; the simple allure of someplace where nobody knew us.

I returned to the sickroom to find the doctor suggesting Stinker be moved to London for easier access to all the pills and powders and whatnot, a case of Muhammad coming to the mountain, or possibly the other way round. The village chemist in Totleigh environs wasn't precisely equipped to be boiling up the needful, so it would have to come from London wherever Stinker was.

"He'll be sick the whole way," Stiffy protested. "All that light and noise. Surely he'll be more comfortable here."

"It's my health, thank you," Stinker said peevishly. "Between a few hours of misery or waiting another week to get any better, I'll put on some dark glasses and grit my teeth." He sort of scoffed, though he is not the scoffing sort ordinarily. "On one side, anyway."

Stiffy looked wounded. The doc. began clattering on about what a nice place the Royal London Infirmary was these days, but she stopped him. "Harold, you hate hospitals. You say it every time you have to go round to one."

"I'm quite determined, Stephanie," he said. "The sooner I'm rid of this, the better."

"Well, I won't hear of you suffering in some horrid old hospital. We'll just find someone in London who won't mind you staying with them for a bit." Three guesses who her eyes fell on, and the first two don't count.

I couldn't very well protest, could I? 'Sorry, no, I can't possibly be prevented from unclothing my manservant whenever I please,' would go over none too well, and there was no other reason to say no, so I hastened to extend the invite. There was a slight silver lining: the spare bedroom was indisposed due to either a Claude or an Eustace having somehow broken the bed frame on their last visit, so as the only other suitable thing for Stinker was my own room, I could bunk in with Jeeves without raising any eyebrows. Even if Stinker worked it out, he couldn't precisely cast stones, little though he might like it.

Trouble was, the doc. seemed eager to have the thing done quickly, no doubt to start writing up his findings for _M'doctor's Boudoir_ or whatever it is they read. "Jeeves won't be best pleased to get here and find I've scarpered," I warned, "and what's more, I'm no use at soup and tea."

"Well," Stiffy said, "take a telegram to Butterfield and have him send it to all the trains and the ferry. He'll get it one place or another and come straight to London, easy-peasy."

"Oh, all right. At least let me change before we go?"

I was permitted the luxury even of bathing, but only because the doc. had to go and requisition an ambulance since Stinker couldn't precisely just be thrown in the back of the Bentley. Along with a hefty tip for his trouble, I sent the following off with Butterfield:

JEEVES STOP TERRIBLY SORRY STOP CHANGE OF PLAN STOP STINKER NOT DYING BUT NEEDS TREATMENT IN LONDON STOP IS TO STAY WITH US STOP PROCEED DIRECT HOME STOP BWW

I had to leave off the endearments and what all, of course, since Butterfield and who knew how many telegraph operators had to see the thing. While awaiting the ambulance I slipped out and nipped over to the rectory and fished the fearful box out from under Stinker's bed. I considered it no less of a danger just because he'd conceded not to do any shuffling-off just yet. Now that I knew about it the thing would haunt me until I knew there was nothing in it that, if viewed by the wrong parties, could even possibly lead to self and Jeeves being torn asunder. There was a sturdy lock on it, at least, and I very valiantly resisted the urge to pry it off and dump the whole contents in the nearest fireplace.

Stinker was not sick the whole way. He drifted off from sheer exhaustion about halfway there and recommenced more or less the moment we woke him, but did manage to hold it in long enough to get through the door. I'm sure we made quite a picture— Stinker, the doc., the driver, Nannie Faye and self. Jarvis gave me about as rummy a look as he could get away with.

"What ho, Jarvis," I said as though not attending a practically blindfolded curate, not that he could tell as Stinker had on a nightshirt and overcoat. Stiffy had stayed behind to get a bit of rest and pack up and would follow in a couple of days. Obviously there was no room for her chez Wooster, but the girl had plenty of friends and would stay with one or another of them.

To my relief, Jeeves 'phoned up within minutes of our arrival, which suggested he'd either been trying for a bit or had very good timing. "Jeeves! One of the wires got to you, then?"

"Yes, sir, when I disembarked the train at Calais. I will be on the five o'clock ferry and have arranged with the garage for the car to be in readiness when I arrive at Folkestone."

"Oh, good, jolly good. I was afraid you'd turn up at Totleigh only to find your efforts in vain. I tried to catch you in Paris to tell you to stay there, but you must've already gone. I suppose it's just as well since Stinker will be convalescing here."

"So I gathered, sir." I wished he'd stop with the 'sir,' but the amount of noise around him meant he was where people could hear him, so if anyone knew he was speaking to his employer he couldn't precisely call me 'darling.' Not that he'd ever called me that. I tried to imagine it and found it a very pleasing thought.

"Sorry about all this," I said.

"I doubt Paris will change very much before Reverend Pinker is recovered, sir."

That final exchange, _in re_ the wording, was utterly mundane, but what I meant was more like 'I didn't want to go back to the world yet,' and what I heard ran along the lines of 'neither did I, but we can go back and I'll dance with you.' It left me a bit wistful and misty.

Nannie Faye, the marvellous creature, agreed to stay the night so as not to leave us without an able-bodied person with a household skill or two. In London, not the flat. I wouldn't have her in a chair all night and she wouldn't put me out of the last bed going, so as a compromise I got her a room at the hotel round the corner, which she seemed quite happy to accept.

Her cooking was not a patch on Jeeves's, of course, but where his was all rather gourmand, if that's the word I want, hers had a homey comforting nannie-ish quality to it, which I suppose made sense with her being a nannie and all. As it turned out, Stiffy had begged her out of retirement, trusting no one else to nurse poor Stinker. All I got was an odd look when I asked her if she knew Nannie Pete, so I suppose there isn't a club for nannies like there is for butlers and valets.

It was about nine when she and the doc. finally cleared out, the latter after doing something to Stinker that made him groan so loudly I could hear it two rooms away. He advised me Stinker was likely out for the night, so I happily toddled off to Jeeves's lair to rest the bones.

I'd never spent much time in there, you understand, as even the firstmost-rate valet has to have a little something to himself that isn't constantly invaded by his employer. I'd only called on him there in the direst of circs, and dire circs being what they are, I never took much time to look round.

It was nice enough. Smallish but cosy, with a screen separating the desk and settee from the bed. I saw what he'd meant about the furniture (though I now suspected that request had been hastily supplied in the stead of one of those thought-better-ofs he'd mentioned). There was nothing wrong with it, strictly speaking, but it was beginning to show its age. The bed seemed comfortable enough, though only big enough for two if they liked each other a great deal.

The most striking thing about the place was that anywhere one could put a book, he'd put a book. Every shelf was packed tight with tome after tome; there was even a set of something in bookends atop the chest of drawers. I was sure he'd only had at most two cases when he'd moved in, so either he'd snuck all this up when I wasn't home or he'd collected it all since coming to me.

I recognised a few volumes as bought in my presence or given by me on Christmsases and birthdays, but they wouldn't have filled even one shelf. I'd always thought his requests for books when asked what he wanted were an attempt not to ask for anything too extravagant, for even before I'd realised and confessed my feelings I'd have had no qualms about the bestowing of pricey trinkets, but apparently they really were what he wanted. I had the notion to surprise him with one or five sometime soon, but the task of working out what he might want that wasn't here made me weary and I drifted towards the bed. The linens were pristinely clean, naturally, but they still carried enough of the singular Jeevesian scent that I sighed happily as I wrapped myself in the covers.

I awoke to the real thing seated on the side of the bed, delicately touching my cheek with one hand and balancing a cup of tea in the other. "Jeeves," I said with a smile. "What time is it?"

"Half-past nine."

I groaned and burrowed my face between blanket and tweeded thigh. Jeeves let out a low chuckle and raked his fingers through the back of my hair, which, while lovely, jogged the memory as to what I was doing in this bed in the first place. Reluctantly, I wrenched the bean upwards. "Stinker all right?" I asked.

"According to Mrs Oster, he was feeling some improvement when he woke a few hours ago, though he is still highly fatigued and has been sleeping intermittently. I took the liberty of getting her a train back to Gloucestershire."

"Jolly good." I sat up enough to have a few gulps of tea. "Not too bad a go on the ferry, I hope?"

"It was much as expected."

"I missed you, you know," I said, suddenly shy for some reason and hiding behind the china.

Jeeves moved the cup aside and pressed his lips softly to mine. I rather warmed to the theme and it escalated into something a bit more suggestive. I did not toss the tea over my shoulder and demand to be ravished, but only because Jeeves stopped the proceedings before it got that far. "We mustn't," he said, hoarse and a bit breathy.

"You can't hear a thing in here from anywhere else in the flat," I protested. "Or have you forgotten all the times you've had to peel me off the ceiling because I'd thought you weren't home?"

"I do not customarily make the level of noise there would be, were we to continue."

He had a point. "Fine, we'll use some of your science and logic. Go in another room and I'll make some noise, and you come in when you've heard me." He looked as though he found me quite amusing, but did as I asked. Calling out didn't bring him back in, which was encouraging, and neither did calling out while scraping a chair back and forth. It wasn't until I was singing 'Ukulele Lady' at a fairly full-throated volume and sort of bouncing up and down on the bed that he returned, now looking as though he found me very amusing. "You see? We could have a herd of elephants through here and no one would know. Now come over here and...." Well, and what? I had a few things in mind, of course, but I've already stated where I stand on the matter of talking vs. doing.

"And?" he asked innocently, as he approached with what could have been taken for less-than-innocent intent.

"Have your wicked way with me?" I tried.

"I am afraid," he said, stopping just out of my reach, "that you will have to be more specific." There was a darkish something to his eyes that made several organs stand up and take notice.

"Joining me on the bed would be a good start." He couldn't possibly make me tell him every little thing, could he? That would surely be tiresome.

Jeeves sat down like one might in a theatre, only instead of watching for the lights to dim and the curtain to go up, he was awaiting my next request. It has been said, and will likely continue to be, that Bertram is not the sharpest wossit in the what-have-you, but I'm not so desperately dim that I couldn't tell how he meant this to go. I could easily have simply plastered myself to him and put an end to this game of his; I was sure he'd understand and let it be business as usual.

But quite apart from not being altogether eager to admit my squirmishness about speaking bluntly of these things and back down from the challenge, which did figure into my determination to go on with it, it was what he wanted. Here was Jeeves, asking for a thing that for whatever reason would please him, no hint of if-it-won't-trouble-you or if-I-may-suggest. Simply asking because it was his right. I couldn't just stomp it out without even trying. What's more, I wanted to give it to him.

I drew a steadying breath and summoned the Wooster spirit. "Kiss me?" I said. Not that it was on the list of things I had qualms about outright requesting. Just sort of the traditional beginning to this ilk of proceeding.

I was duly kissed, well and thoroughly, and I was glad Jeeves seemed to view the customary embracing as part and parcel, but when out of habit I began to tug at his tie, he batted my hands away. Well, really! "Clothes need to go," I said, and just to leave nothing to chance, "all of them. Yours and mine."

And thusly the thing went, self giving the instructions and Jeeves carrying them out. I managed it without having to say anything too horrifying until the 'a bit further down' instructions ran their course and the upper portions of my legs were the object of a talented and teasing mouth. It wasn't so much what Jeeves was doing—I made a sort of sighing-moaning noise as he dragged his teeth softly over the crease where thigh met body—but what he was very purposely not doing.

"Perhaps—oh—a bit to the left?"

That got him to the exact same spot on the opposite leg.

"Jee-eeves," I complained. There was most certainly no whining quality to it whatsoever.

He raised his head and regarded me with positive devilment. "Was this not where you meant?"

No, it dashed well wasn't, which he knew. I voiced the request in a stammering rush, but in no uncertain (or polite) terms. With a gorgeous moan he practically swallowed me. He seemed to know the precise moment at which I would be pushed over the edge and lose all ability to pay any mind to the noise—and why shouldn't he, since it was largely due to that _thing_ he kept doing with his tongue—and at said moment clapped a hand firmly over my mouth, reducing what would've been quite the shout to a muffled 'mmmph!' I confess it added a certain _je ne sais quoi_ to the experience, but I lacked the wits to examine it very closely for the present.

I was reduced to a quivering jelly, of course, but Jeeves was still rather more rigid if you get my meaning. Made a bit bold by the recent exertions I asked, "Well, what shall we do with that?" and teased my fingertips over—what's the proper euphe-whatsit? evidence of his regard?—well, that.

"What would you like to do?"

Rather than force out any more risqué requests, I simply turned over and presented him with the suggestion. It was not a new suggestion, though on the one or two past occasions I'd been on my back doing a rather convincing impression of a pretzel. Not that it wasn't up there amongst the loveliest things in the universe, but this way seemed a bit more sensible.

When there was no rattling in drawers or exploring hands or even any movement at all, I looked back over my shoulder to find that Jeeves had indeed gone quite still, and what's more, looked as though he'd sustained a kick to the gut.

"Jeeves, what's the matter?" Perhaps he didn't want to? Was he disappointed I wasn't going on with the game? "If you don't want—"

"I did not mean to give that impression," he said. "I would simply prefer to face you."

I flipped the corpus back over. "Is this one of those things you're going to want me not to ask about? Because I don't mind telling you, it makes a fellow wonder."

"I know," he said, eyes closed.

I pulled him downwards and kissed him what I hoped was reassuringly. "I'd never make you, not that I could. Just, if it bothers you that much I'd rather like to know why."

"I think you will no longer welcome my attentions when the history of that particular aversion is revealed," he said, and made to move away.

"Now look here!" Jeeves has got a good two stone of pure muscle and a couple of inches on me, but he must not have wanted to go too very badly because grabbing the nearest arm was enough to stop his retreat. "Nothing could make me do that." All these bits of unexplained things, these things I couldn't ask him. I got the sinking feeling someone had done something more terrible to him than simply break his heart. Whatever unpleasant memory it was had rather flagged his desire, but I refused to let us stop on such a sour note. "Tell me or don't, but don't keep it to yourself because you think I'll head for the hills." I plied him with as sweet a kiss as I knew how to give and after a moment he made a sound in the back of his throat and began to warm back up.

It may come as a surprise to anyone who's merely heard tell of this particular pastime, or seen the sort of films one can't see in a cinema, but it's not a simple case of this-goes-here and have at it. If it's to be anything other than a miserable experience, steps must be taken to ease the way. In my humble opinion it's best done in a slow and methodical way and carried on a bit past the point of readiness for the main event so that the party on the receiving is more or less ready to beg for it. Or at least that's the way Jeeves does it, so I'll admit to a certain bias. I suppose one 'please, now,' doesn't really amount to begging, but had that not done the trick I would have carried on until it did.

From atop and within me as he waited for the slight burn to subside, and somehow he always knew when it had, Jeeves fixed an intense—I might even say penetrating—gaze upon me and said, "I love you, Bertie. I love you." I could only respond with the sort of noise that doesn't translate well to written accounts; as good as it may sound to the parties involved, the best approximation is something like 'aunnngh,' which looks like it could be some painful grunting thing, but take me at my word that it was not. It was the sound of a blissful Bertram, for Jeeves had begun to move, and continued to do so, with the slow controlled perfection that's present in all he does.

Despite the interesting contortions one's legs are forced into, a point highly in favour of facing each other was that I had the privilege of watching this control escape him bit by bit. If Jeeves himself is a work of art, Jeeves giving into the very ectasy of love, as the fellow said, is a sky-high stack of museums. I could imagine nothing else like it, hearing my name invoked alongside deities as he forgot himself utterly, grasping at sheets and hands and shoulders until he suddenly went completely still with the proverbial spilling-over of desire.

The problem with these things is that you can't proceed direct to the basking without a certain amount of housekeeping first unless you'd like the laundress to wonder what on earth you've been getting up to. Most times back at the cottage, Jeeves had stumbled off for something in the way of a cloth fairly soon after the fact, but in this case he simply scooped me up and carried me to the bath. The thing was barely big enough for one, but we both squeezed in somehow. I closed my eyes and let myself be washed and rubbed and held, now wondering again who had hurt him so, who could have been so heartless not to adore and cherish his every blink. "I love you, too," I said, belated though it was, and didn't mind one bit that the kiss I got for it was a bit soapy.

Due to the time of day and the unfortunate houseguest, we were forced back to ourselves sooner than I would have liked. I found myself a trifle crestfallen at the news that my clothes and toilet accoutrements could be found in the spare bedroom and hall bath respectively. In the Brittany cottage there had been but one bathroom and it had given me a silly little warm feeling to see our toothbrushes side by side in the holder.

"There is a ready excuse if it happens to come to light that you are not sleeping in the spare bedroom," Jeeves explained, "but no one would expect you to also bathe and dress in my quarters."

I'd never given a thought to anybody actually thinking about it at all. "Well, where are they going to think you're sleeping?"

"If anyone should pause to consider it, they will likely assume that I have prevailed upon the hospitality of some other servant in the building."

If they even considered it. Someone might bother to wonder after my needs if they were feeling especially charitable, but not after Jeeves's.  This was not Brittany, and I'd best buck up and get used to it.


	7. More Fuel to the Fire

**7\. More Fuel to the Fire**

Stinker didn't prove to be much of a guest or really even much of a patient. He was more a sleeping thing in the other room that one knew existed and walked softly past. The doctor's assistant arrived as I was finishing my breakfast, and the doc. himself turned up in the afternoon. Stiffy phoned around teatime to announce that she'd be there on the morrow and was elated with the news of improvement.

Stinker's presence in the home also very happily forestalled a visit from Aunt Agatha, who viewed illness as a dangerous and highly contagious character flaw. I had half a mind to tell her he was still here far into the future, possibly with rabbits. He woke for an hour or two and I played cards with him. Someone had got him into a bath at some point because he was no longer on his way to earning his name in a more literal way. He looked much better as well, and it seemed as though the afflicted side of his face was coming back to life.

"How can I ever thank you enough, Bertie?" he kept saying. He held my discovery of the tick as his cure rather than all the potions the doctor was pumping into him, and nothing would disabuse him of the notion.

"If you'd let anybody comb your hair, someone would have found the dratted thing ages ago," I said peevishly after about the sixty-fifth time.

"They all made me feel like an invalid. You're the only one who didn't."

I scoffed. "Yes, they should bottle me up and pass me out in hospitals."

"They'd make a fortune," he said reverently, missing the point. He put his hand over mine and while it was nice to know he was getting a bit stronger, I thought I'd better not be indulging that sort of thing anymore. 

I gave a perfunctory sort of squeeze in return and pretended to need that hand for my drink. "Well, you can repay my kindness by ceasing to talk all this rot of kilted Woosters at weddings. I'm not sure the populace would ever recover from the sight of my legs."

"Oh, all right," he said. "But they're perfectly good legs. Which reminds me— I hate to ask you, but did you ever get that box?"

"Yes, it's in the back of the wardrobe. I didn't like to think of it being out in the world."

"The wardrobe? Won't Jeeves look in there and wonder what it is?"

He might, at that. I'd failed to mention the thing at all, the mind having been otherwise occupied. But as far as Stinker knew, I reminded myself, Jeeves was in no posish to wonder what I was keeping in locked boxes. "He knows what a lock is for. I'll tell him it's your life savings or something if he asks." And what indeed would I tell him? If I was going about asking him for histories, he ought to get the same from me. It's not the sort of thing one just bungs in amongst the pleasantries and adoring glances, though. "And by the way, if my name's on any of that I'll thank you to burn it promptly."

"I know," Stinker sighed. "It's idiotic I've kept it at all, but I just sort of couldn't bring myself to chuck it all on a fire."

"Well, bring yourself and get to the chucking directly you can crouch near a fireplace. I've spent quite enough time in prison already."

The box haunted me all evening, like the heart that chappie kept hearing under the floorboard. I didn't like to think what would happen if Jeeves worked it out before I told him. No matter that I'd been intending to tell him; if he caught on first it would look as though I'd been trying to hide it. It was more or less scientifically proven.

Our dinner together should have been a nice companionable thing, but every time I looked at Jeeves I was assaulted by visions of him going looking for a shoe or some such thing, and no sooner did this imaginary Jeeves say to himself, 'Hello, what's this?' than the telltale obj. fell to the floor and spilled its damning contents. Nothing good could possibly follow.

I got quieter and quieter as I tried to work out how to spring it, and the looks Jeeves gave me got rummier and rummier. The cat in the adage had nothing on Bertram.

I knew it was getting a bit too thick for paddling when Jeeves asked, "Is the filet not to your liking?" and there was practically a 'sir' on the end of it.

"No, it's perfect as always," I said automatically, but then I looked down at my plate and saw I'd barely touched it. Absently carved it to bits, yes, but eaten much of it, no. Come to think of it, I hadn't really tasted what little had gone down the hatch. "I suppose I'm not very hungry."

Jeeves took the plate away silently, but the soupy eyebrow clearly said, 'I don't believe you for a moment, Wooster.' I didn't blame it. If I'd been in his shoes—well, they wouldn't have fit very well, for a start, but that was beside the point—I would have been wondering what I'd done wrong.

Oh.

I'd better out with it, I realised, before he thought he really had done something wrong. I lit a nervous cigarette and watched the sink fill with bubbles. Before Jeeves could get the sleeves rolled up and into the apron, I plunged in with both feet. Not into the sink, but the breach, as it were. "Leave that, will you?"

He left it and turned to face me.

What now? A drink. Just the thing. These things went better with drinks. Dutch courage and all. "Are the Dutch very cowardly when they're not drinking?" I asked as I rummaged through the cupboard in search of a spirit spirited enough.

"As I have never met a Dutchman, I could not say." He got between me and the rummaging in that way that only he can manage to shove someone aside without doing any proper shoving. "Allow me."

"Make it a strong one," I said. "Probably even a stronger one for yourself."

He poured two generous measures without protest, but it was a dark look he gave me when he handed me my glass. "What has happened?"

"Happened? Nothing's happened!" But no use trying to squirm out of it now. "Nothing recently, anyway. There's a thing I—" I took a fortifying gulp. "I think we'd better not do this in here."

Jeeves nodded and led us lair-ward, where I paced around the settee rather than exactly sit on it.

Another gulp and I started over. "You've seen the box in my wardrobe?"

"I had remarked on its presence, yes." He was looking at his hands.

"Well, it's Stinker's. And it's full of— well, all I know is it's full of things that are better off in a fireplace and that some of them concern me. Maybe all of them. I don't know."

Jeeves looked up sharply. "If he is threatening some sort of—"

"No, no, it's nothing like that. He'd never. He's agreed it's all going straight on a merry blaze as soon as he's up to it. Thinking he was going to pop his clogs and have it gone through by Stiffy or similar rather brought him to his senses. But what the letters or whatever they are are about, that's the thing I— I mean to say, it was a long time ago, mostly, and it's done with, but I thought you should know."

"Mostly?"

"When he came here a couple of weeks ago, we— well _he_ — I honestly had no idea he was still— or that he was ever, until then, but I was afraid you'd open it and get the wrong idea."

"Would you please sit down, Bertie?" I'm asked this often when I get a good bit of pacing going, but never quite so kindly. I sat. "I believe you are informing me of a past liaison with Mr Pinker?"

"Just the one," I said. "It was only once. The 'mostly' part was sort of a— well, it _was_ a kiss, but it was all wrong." Jeeves looked stony. "It was before France," I added, in case this glarishness was due to him mixing up the order of events. "Sort of why I was all dodgy that day you suggested going, actually."

"But he still intends to marry Miss Byng?"

I shrugged, wondering what difference that made. "In a kilt."

"And your discovery of the sheep-tick?"

Oh. He'd heard about that. I couldn't blame him for looking a bit cross. "You didn't see him, Jeeves. I never let on, but I would've called it a dead cert, if you'll pardon the expression, that he wasn't long for this world. He hadn't let anybody comb his hair in ages and I started out just trying to straighten it a bit, but he was so miserable, and it seemed to make him less miserable. I don't know, it just sort of seemed like the thing to do. A few years ago I wouldn't even have thought it a thing that needed explaining." I sighed. "I wish you wouldn't be angry with me."

"I am not angry with you." He took my hand and no, it didn't feel angry. "I am jealous, perhaps irrationally so."

"There's nothing to be jealous of. Possibly the opposite. That wrongness I mentioned was what finally coshed the old grey matter into realising it was you I wanted to be kissing."

Rather abruptly, I found myself being pulled sideways and kissed as though Jeeves had thought I'd meant now. Not that I minded. As kisses go, even as the generally high standard of kisses from Jeeves go, it was a corker. "Then I am indebted to him," Jeeves intoned throatily when it sadly reached its end. "And yet," he said, tightening his grasp on me, "I hate him."

"Whatever for? I look back very fondly on our friendship, even rather mourn the passing of the thing as was, but that's the end of it. Nobody could hold a candle to you, Jeeves, and I wouldn't want them to try. Not so much as a matchstick."

"As I said, it is irrational. I find myself resenting every moment the world requires me to share you with it."

"I'm all yours even when you're miles away. Twin compasses, as the fellow said." I thought it perhaps not the time to go after the bit of history I wanted from Jeeves, as it seemed it might strain him unduly after one heavyish talk. Instead I suggested making an early night of it, which was well-received, though no proper sleeping occurred until several hours thence.

The 'morrow found Stinker declared well enough to lie on the chesterfield if the curtains were drawn, and Jeeves must have been itching to get at the bed-linens, for the moment I was dressed he fairly skipped off to change them. I confess the room was due for a bit of an airing, even if it meant I was confined to chairs or the piano bench if I wished to make use of my sitting room. Stinker seemed to prefer the latter, as it meant he would be entertained.

I'd given him the pile of music to pick through so he could toss over whatever he wanted to hear, but had very purposely not handed him the Chopin. He spied it anyway. "What about that Chopin? I love Chopin."

Well, I rather thought of Chopin as something that more or less belonged to Jeeves. In view of our recent talk, I had the inkling he might be of a similar mind, what with all the reluctance to share me. I couldn't say that without making matters awkward in the extreme, so instead I said, "I make an awful hash of it. Two notes out of me and there's an earthquake in Poland caused by old Frederic rolling over in his grave."

"I think he's buried in France, actually," Stinker said, but he seemed to accept the excuse and flung a song towards me. 'And Her Mother Came Too' would surely give Jeeves a headache, but all concerned would be much happier.

I was released from my post when the doc. turned up for some more poking and prodding, followed more or less directly by a Stiffy in much better spirits than I'd seen her last. I left them to it and legged it to the kitchen where Jeeves was going through tea motions.

I dared to plant a quick one on his lips on my way to take up the paper. It turned out to have been a very daring feat indeed, as no sooner had we parted than in burst Stiffy wondering whether there were any cigarettes about. "Silver box on the mantlepiece," I managed round the pounding heart of disaster-averted. "What did the doctor have to say?"

"Harold's practically cured!" she effused, bestowing a sisterly smacker upon the still-blushing Wooster cheek for my role in the proceedings. "I think this rates you being godfather to our first child!"

Fortunately for the both of us, she bounced back out before she could see the horror-struck grimace of impending d. that clouded my brow. "What does a godfather do, precisely?" I asked Jeeves with not a little trepidation, if that's the word I want for the nerves jangling round visions of sticky-handed tots being deposited in my care at week-ends. "Mine's my Uncle George, so I don't know what of it was uncling and what was godfathering."

"Traditionally the godparents see to the child's spiritual upbringing," Jeeves replied, ever the font of knowledge.

"Well, that's all right, then. Stinker should have that well in hand."

"It has become more usual in recent years, however, for the role to more closely resemble that of an aunt or uncle," he added.

"Blast."

I had to wait a full minute for any sort of consolation on this less-than-topping development while he took the tea out. "I doubt your duties for the next few years will prove more strenuous than your presence at the christening," he said when he came back and joined me at the table, "alongside whomever is chosen as godmother."

"Double blast. It'll be Madeline Bass—er, Spode—for sure. At least she can't try to marry me. I think I shall make it my special job to see to Spodecup's continued health and long, long life. Godparents aren't generally made guardians in the event of the unthinkable, are they? When they're no relation, I mean?"

"Generally not, when a relative is available, unless the parents have specified a wish to that effect."

"Well, godfather's one thing, but I think they know better than that. And as Madeline is Stiffy's cousin, I think I'm safe, what?"

"One would think so. But had you not expressed a wish to form closer ties of that nature with your nieces?"

"Well, I said that thinking I'd be counting down the twilight years all alone." I was struck by a perfectly awful thought. "Though I suppose there's still every possibility I'll outlive you." And worse, what if he wasn't looking at this thing between us as I was? What if he'd just be off once it had run its course and he'd got tired of me?

I swallowed round a lumpish thing that had formed itself in my throat and tried to speak as quietly as I could so as not to be overheard, the combined effect being not dissimilar to one of those chappies in films crawling through a desert gasping, 'Water, water.' "You do still mean to be around that long? That is, I know we can't exactly make anything official, but I hope you know that if we could— I mean to say I'd marry you in a heartbeat if I could, and just because I can't doesn't mean I don't look on this the same way."

Jeeves gripped my hand very tightly beneath the tabletop, which would've been answer enough for me, but he also leaned over to whisper in my ear. "I love you with all my heart, Bertram, but your timing is abominable." I think I've explained before what lips near my ears do to other parts of me, and this case was no exception.

"I am, of course, of the same mind," he continued, "and should very much like to kiss you at this moment, but I fear I would be compelled to take you to bed immediately." I could not help a slight moan making its way out. "If I could control myself for even that distance," Jeeves added, causing another, less-slight moan along with all sorts of visions involving the kitchen furniture and no clothes.

Curse all Stinkers and Stiffys!

As it happened, I did not get so much as another moment alone with Jeeves for the rest of the day. Once all the excitement had done Stinker in and he'd dozed off, I was obliged to accompany Stiffy on an absolutely interminable list of wedding errands. The pinnacle of this indignity was a visit to some tailor's shop to have me poked with pins while modelling eight thousand morning coats and sixteen thousand pair of sponge-bag trousers in a veritable rainbow of nearly-exactly-the-same.

"I thought Stinker was marching up the aisle in a kilt," I complained as my pillowy bits were assaulted by yet another drawing pin.

"He is," said Stiffy, who was comfortably perched in a squashy chair and nibbling at cakes. "These are for the groomsmen. Pongo won't wear a kilt either, so we've scratched it and you'll all be in suits."

"Thank heavens for small favours. This won't do, by the way," I said, meaning the shirt. "Jeeves would be plotting its demise the moment it came through the door." As would I, come to that. My tastes admittedly tend toward the fanciful, but never venture into that land beyond the pale in which reside ruffled shirts.

"Oh, that's clever," Stiffy said. "'What would Jeeves do?' It should be a slogan. I swear I shall sob into my tea the day that man comes to his senses and goes off to run the country." Whether she meant with joy or sorrow I did not ask, and neglected to disabuse her of the notion he'd be going anywhere. "Will we put him on my side or Harold's?" she wondered while on the subj.

This was the first I'd heard of his being invited as a proper guest. I naturally would have thought it only fitting, but it did the Wooster heart good to hear other parties had thought along similar lines. "Stinker's, I should think, since I'm standing up and all, unless you really want him on yours."

"No, I suppose not. If nothing else he'll make up the numbers. Loads of Harold's friends are off building churches in jungles and won't make it, and you know he's got no family at all. You know, they say all these terrible things about our generation being aimless and useless, but I'm jolly glad half the people I know didn't die in some trench." This line of thought did make more sense than it might've appeared to on the surface, as the erstwhile Pinker maj. had been done in at Gallipoli.

As I played pincushion and kept up running commentary with Stiffy, the further-back regions of the onion contemplated Jeeves's time in said trenches. He never spoke of it but in passing, but I doubted his thoughts on the subj. were of a lightly passing nature. He had a way of reducing things to trifles when he didn't like to think of them, and the list of those trifles was rather piling up.

I couldn't simply sit him down and give him the third degree about all of it, but I couldn't help thinking that a portrait of the marvel as a young man would offer the key to his inner workings. And I did want at those inner workings. It's all well and good to have wonders perfomed in mysterious ways, but dash it, he knew the Wooster mechanism down to the last cog while I laboured in relative obscurity looking for the 'on' switch. Not that Jeeves is a machine, but if he were, he'd be a wonder of modern invention.

I came away from the tailor's with a few sore spots and a new resolve to put Jeeves toward explaining a thing or two, but as stated there was no moment alone to even make a beginning on it. Stiffy mooched about the flat well into the evening, for which I could not blame her when I learned she was enjoying the hospitality of the hair-raising Lady Florence Craye, bane of chaps far and wide who do not wish to have their minds improved and be made to run for Parliament.

Once La Byng had biffed off _chez_ Craye after dinner, Jeeves biffed equally off _chez_ his club to attend the send-off of some fellow Ganymedian into the ranks of the married, thereby leaving me with Stinker, a merrily crackling fire lit to stave off the damp of the dampish day, and a box full of incriminating whatsits. As the fire was already lit with Stinker positioned near it, I thought now as good a time as any to relieve us of the burden, and duly presented him with the thing.

"You haven't looked in it?" he asked, running his hands over the outside.

"How could I? It's locked."

"Right," he said, and flipped the lid open with a flourish. A distinct wistfulness passed over his map, along with a shake of the head. "I was so stupid to keep all this. Anyone might've found it."

"Well, thank your lucky stars no one did and burn the lot." I tossed some cushions down near the hearth and helped him down off the sofa to within reach of the fire.

I thought to leave him to it, but he nodded at the spot next to him and with some reluctance I settled myself in it, hoping he didn't mean to have me read through everything. "Some of it's all right to keep," he said, brandishing a postcard bearing a scene of Morocco.

I recognised it instantly. Our first year at Oxford we'd been parting company for summer hols and Stinker had said, 'Send me a postcard.'

'What, from Worcestershire?' I'd asked. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

'So send me one from someplace you'd like to go,' he'd ordered.

The card he now held out to me had been the result. Some friend of my Aunt Dahlia's had written it to her, but in pencil, so I'd rubbed it out and written my own message. It ran:

 _Dear Stinker,_  
Morocco is lovely this time of year, or so I've heard. Wish I was there and you were too. Aunt D's estate sadly lacking in camels.  
Yours, Bertie  
  
"You really kept that?" I asked, rather hoping he'd simply used it to mark a book and forgotten it existed. "I mean, back then you didn't.... Did you?"

"Since the moment I tripped over your trunk," he said with a saddish nod.

Since the moment we'd met, in other words. If it was possible to feel worse about the damage I'd done to his heart, I now did. "Oh, Stinker," I sighed in sympathy, knowing well what it was to wait and hope and wish, and ultimately despair. "If I'd had any idea—"

"You would have run the other way and never let me as close as you did," he finished for me. Possibly he was right; just look at how long it had taken me to get my head round the mere idea of Jeeves as my be-all and end-all. He threw a page on the flames and I thought I glimpsed the words 'heart's desire' curling into ash. "It never could have ended well." 'Depths of my soul' burned away.

"Are you happy?" I asked. "Will you be happy marrying Stiffy?"

"I'll be content, I think. It's really the best anyone can hope for."

Was it, I wondered? Because I'd rather been aiming for happy and had thought myself well started onto that road. This could not be stated, of course. "Life with Stiffy won't be dull," I said instead.

"Never," Stinker said with a soft laugh, now twisting a handkerchief between his fingers. I wouldn't have recognised the thing if not for the blood on it; he'd held it to my gushing beak the night I'd thought it a topping idea to scale Magdalen Tower and give one of the statues thereon a hat. Bit of a grisly thing to keep, and I was glad to see it burn away. "She wants to name our first child after her father."

"Well, that's not unusual, is it?"

"His name was Bartemius."

"That's practically begging for him to be called—"

"Barmy, I know. I tried to tell her. We'll just have to have him tutored at home."

"Maybe if you start out with Barty, it'd stick? I'm not having a Barmy for a godson. What if it's a girl?"

"Jane."

"Pray for a girl, I say. You've got an in up there, should work out."

Stinker held up a well-worn page. "Last one. First one, actually. I wrote it _that_ morning." He handed it to me. Reading it was the last thing I wanted, but I rather felt he'd left me no choice.

 _Dear Bertie_ (it said),

_I'm so sorry. I've ruined everything. If I hadn't been weak, if I hadn't given into temptation, I never would have had to know I mean nothing to you. I mistook camaraderie for affection, kindness for infatuation. I believed something ran between us that was too deep ever to be spoken, and I should never have tested my illusion. I should have taken what I was offered and not reached out for more._

_If I were stronger, I would pretend to agree with you and go back to the way we were, but I am not strong. Every word from your now untouchable lips will be to my ears, 'I can't love you.' The only way out I can see is to sever even the smallest contact, but it would pain me too much to have you think that I hate you. So I will let my vocation consume me, and perhaps in time I will be able to smile and shake your hand._

_Do not blame yourself for my corruption. It is on my head alone. I took something pure and beautiful and made it profane. I will spend the rest of my days seeking some kind of atonement._

_If you know nothing else, if God forbid true happiness should never come your way, know at least that you were once loved with such soul-consuming depth, that you were too beautiful to resist, that you could tempt the very angels from their thrones, and that I shall never, so long as I live, be anything but—_

_Yours always,  
Harold Pinker_

__"I say." I was rather misted up round the eyes despite myself, and who wouldn't be? "You don't still believe this?" For all my lamentations about wanting a love letter, this had never been the sort I'd had in mind.

"No, not all of it. I do love Stephanie, but it was something I had to talk myself round to. I think we only get that bolt from the blue once in a lifetime."

And mine was Jeeves. There was some small part of me that wished I could split in two and love them both, if only to have not been the cause of all this suffering. But Jeeves was it, and that was that. "You don't mean nothing to me, you know."

"I know. Just not as much as I would've wanted."

"I'm sorry."

"It isn't your fault." He plucked the letter from my fingers and cast it into the hearth.

All that was left in the box were the sorts of things that can only have meaning to their owner: the stub of a cinema ticket, a few shells and pebbles, a button. I rather felt that was as it should be, even sort of fitting.

Once I'd helped the patient to bed and retired to the sanctity of Jeeves's lair, I lay awake pondering these bolts from the blue. Had he felt one? Was I really the one true thing? He'd said as much, or near enough to it. It sounded like a thing there would be pretty steep odds on, but they couldn't be so bad as all that or there would be far more marriages made on an 'oh, you'll do, I suppose.'

My own parents, for example, had been head-over-heels for one another from the first to the last. That was more or less what had done my father in. Officially it was a fall off a horse, but I'd found out from overheard bits and pieces some time later that he'd been soused to the gills with grief and riding in the dark at a full gallop. Aunt Dahlia had shot the poor beast and nearly done the same to the groom who'd saddled it.

Then again, if you took someone like Bingo Little, the b. from the blue happened once a week, or had up until he'd met Rosie. Perhaps Bingo was just an odd case of not knowing the difference till he had the real thing, since he hadn't so much as looked at another girl since Rosie had captured his heart.

In the midst of my ponderings, Jeeves slipped in silently as ever. I probably looked like I was asleep, pondering as I'd been with the lids shut, but I cracked one open a fraction to watch him undress. Oh, I'd seen him do it before, of course; I'd done it myself. But it was a different matter when he didn't know he was being watched. So quick, but so careful, every button worked with a swift and studied grace— and that was Jeeves in a nutshell, wasn't it?

I was well into full-on staring in admiration by the time he finished up and came to my side. "May I join you?"

In answer I shifted over so as not to occupy the whole mattress, and was momentarily wrapped head to toe in warm, wonderful Jeeves. He smelt of clean laundry and toothpaste and the faint lingerings of the night's festivities, scotch and tobacco, with the classic Jeevesness underlying it all. "How did I ever sleep without you?" I wondered aloud, shoving a hand up the back of his pyjama shirt in protest of its existence.

"Exceedingly well, I believe, most nights."

"Oh, stop it. I was trying to be romantic." I gave a light pinch to his belly, not that there was much to pinch. "Anyway, I couldn't go back now I've drunk from the whatsit."

"I fear you shall be required to, unless you propose to cease visiting your friends and relations."

If it weren't for the fact that he was stroking my hair, I might have formed the distinct impression that he was narked with me over something. "Your mood strikes me as cynical, Jeeves. Did you not have a good time at the wake for your friend's bachelorhood?"

"It was most agreeable."

I could hear a veil of inscrutability descending—if such things can be heard—and un-embraced enough to look over at him. "Then what on earth is the matter?"

He looked away.

"Jeeves." I like to think my tone struck the proper balance between coaxing and stern.

"I happened to wonder as to the events that placed the cushions and blankets on the hearthrug."

He was jealous again! "We were burning those incriminating papers," I said. "I readily confess to a ramble or two down memory lane, but other than the content of the documents in q., there was nothing that couldn't have been done in full view of the public. I wish you'd stop thinking me fickle and faithless, Jeeves. It pains me." It was a trifle insulting, but what bothered me more was that he seemed to be going about in constant doubt of my regard. I laid a hand over the general area where his heart was. "This is it for me, you know. The big It with all the bells and whistles, the end. If it isn't for you, then—" I choked up a bit, because then what?

Fortnuately he didn't leave me to wonder very long. "It has long been my wish to spend my life by your side, Bertie."

"Then why worry? I've often said that when two chaps of iron will such as ourselves abide in close quarters, there's bound to be clashes, but when said iron-willed chaps both want the same thing? Why, it can't fail."

"I simply fear that in view of your youth—"

"In view of my youth? Are you about to fine me five pounds? You may be decades cleverer, Jeeves, but you're not so very much older."

"Eight years is a considerable time, particularly in the earlier half of life, but I spoke more in terms of experience. It was some while ago that I learned the difficult lesson of separating passionate infatuation from real love. You have not yet been forced to."

I bristled, or would have if I'd had bristles. "What, because I've never been so deeply dippy for anyone else I can't possibly really feel it?"

"I would not have put it in such terms, but that is my concern in essence: that once you realised your nature and preferences, you naturally fixed on the most likely and convenient object."

"In other words, now I've worked out the female mystique is no mystique at all, I latched onto the first chap on offer?"

"It was my own unhappy fate, some years ago."

I left that for the moment, because if I forced the story out of him now I'd never get round to saying my piece, but I resolved not to let it lie any longer than than it had to. "Your logic is flawed, Jeeves. If you remember, you were not the first chap on offer, but previous applicants were soundly rejected on the grounds of not being you. If one of us has cause to worry, it should be me. What have I got that somebody else hasn't got more and better of? And yet I take it on faith that there's some particular thingness to me that keeps you here, because you say so. It can't quite work if you don't do the same. So try, will you? As a special favour to me?"

"It is this flawed logic of which you speak that doubts," he said, gathering me back to him, "not my heart."

"Well, listen to your heart for once, will you?"

He agreed, and sealed the deal with a very serious kiss. I hadn't know kisses could be serious, really, but I suppose they can be anything they like since the feelings causing them can be anything. I wondered what an angry kiss would feel like, not that I was about to try to brass Jeeves off just to find out. Rough, I imagined, possibly with teeth. I tried it out but without any honest anger it didn't so much say, 'I am angry,' as 'please strip off my pyjamas and have your way with me.'

Not that I minded being had Jeeves's way with, but I did sort of wonder (not in the course of the thing, you understand, as I'd lost all faculty for thought, but shortly afterwards) when it would be my turn to have my way with him, as it were. I'd never so much as hinted at it, reduced to blushing and blithering as I am when made to speak of such matters, but Jeeves had no such compunction and certainly would have suggested it if he wanted it.

Perhaps he thought he wouldn't like it, or I wouldn't like it, or it carried too much of the 'master bending the servant to his will' about it. If I had a scruple about it, it was that last one, but surely someone as clever as Jeeves could find a way to carry it off without flavouring it that way.

Or, perhaps—it dawned, the pieces of the matter falling into place like one of Aunt Agatha's infernal jigsaw puzzles—he knew he didn't like it. Perhaps discovering he didn't like it had been his hard lesson, the dark thing that he alluded to, as well as the reason he always insisted on facing me.

Anger boiled up within the Wooster breast at the thought of him being so ill-used, the shuddersome notion of just what sort of awful cad it would take to approach him with anything other than reverent adoration.

Despite my resolve to have the tale told, I didn't like to spoil the basking with such an unpleasant line of questioning, but I did hold him just a little tighter as we drifted off into the dreamless. My last waking thought was to decree to myself that the moment we had the flat to ourselves, the thing would be had out once and for all.


	8. Book Marks

**8\. Book Marks**

****The vacating of the flat by any and all under-the-weather curates happened sooner than expected. Stinker was deemed well enough to return home the very next day, and did so the one following. Scarcely had he toodle-pipped than Jeeves was off like a shot to my bedchamber, airing and scrubbing and dusting like a thing possessed. This having-out of histories itched at me to have itself done, but I reasoned he was best left to it, as he'd be more inclined to sit still for such talks if there was no stone left unturned in the housekeeping realm.

Therefore I left him to turn the stones as he would, and ventured out in mind of getting him a present. Why a present? Well, why not a present? He'd certainly jogged the extra yard or eighty putting in all this time looking after sickly Stinkers, and since despite all professed adoration my consent to travel Japanward was still but a figment, I felt some material token was at least in order.

Jeeves being Jeeves, material tokens meant books, but my ramble toward the bookseller was interrupted when my eye was waylaid by a display in a jeweller's window. I gazed wistfully on the rings there. I couldn't get him one; he wouldn't be able to wear it even if I could come up with an explanation for buying a romantically engraved man's ring that was too big for me. But it didn't stop me looking and wishing.

The chosen bookshop was one I'd been in before on Jeeves's recommendation, so it had seemed the sensible place to go to find something he'd want. The one or two previous visits had been simple cases of 'I'd like this thing, please,' and 'here you are,' and 'good day.' While the elderly cove who greeted me seemed vaguely familiar, I didn't think I'd seen him here. I'd remember a moustache that singularly walrus-like, but it was not the soup-strainer that was familiar. It was something else I couldn't place; perhaps he simply had one of those faces.

"And what can I do for you, sir?" he asked.

"Well, I need a book, but I suppose you guessed that or I wouldn't be here."

"Indeed, indeed. You look like a mystery man to me—that is, a mystery-reading man, hah!—have you read the new C. P. Whitland?" Eyebrows, bushy or not, have no right to move in that fashion.

"As it happens, you'd be spot-on, but the book's not for me. It's for a...friend. One who it rather seems has got everything already."

"Always a difficulty, always a difficulty. I've got the same problem with a nephew of mine. Anything you know he likes, then? Bit of a something to go on?"

"Oh, the usual. Shakespeare, Spinoza—" A stroke of brilliance hit me. "I say, who's the chappie with the bit about pilgrim souls? He likes his stuff."

"Yeats, my good man. W. B. Yeats."

The brilliance did not feel quite so brilliant. I deflated somewhat. "Oh. Even I've got a Yeats lying about someplace, so he must have at least five."

"Is 'When You Are Old' a particular favourite, then?"

"When I'm old? What's that got to do with anything?"

"The verse, my boy, the verse. 'When You Are Old,' it's called."

"Oh. Yes, I suppose it must be."

"Well, then. Well, then, I may have something." He unlocked the case behind him where booksellers tend to keep the stuff they don't want everybody's paws all over and fished out an attractive leatherbound volume. "I say I may, but I mean I do. If he's a good friend, that is, and takes care of his books."

I think that must've been walrusy bookseller-speak for 'this one's a bit pricey.' I frowned at it. It bore the name of a French fellow I had vague memories of having heard mentioned in the course of my education. "What's this to do with Yeats?" I asked.

"Ah, patience, patience. I'm getting to that." He thumbed a few pages and then presented me with one.

"I'm no great scholar of French, but it looks misspelt to me."

The bookseller gave a hearty guffaw. "My dear boy! Do you look at Shakespeare and think it misspelt?"

"Well, I suppose I might, if I didn't know any better, but it's generally known that the Bard knew he was about."

"As did Ronsard, my boy, as did Ronsard. One could call him the Swan of Blois, if one liked."

"You mean he's like a French Shakespeare."

"He did as much with language, surely. This misspelt thing you're looking on is what Yeats took and made his own. The thing in its nascent form. And you won't find many who have this edition."

Well, it seemed just about perfect to me. I'd thought to find a book containing _the_ poem, but I'd gone one better and dug up the thing at the source. It was just a nice touch of cream on top that the source happened to be French. I laid out a galling sum (galling for a book, anyway) and had it wrapped up.

I went away feeling very pleased with myself indeed. I took a look back at the shop front on my way out, wondering if the name might give some clue to what had been so familiar, but D. Branstone, Bookseller rang not the smallest bell. I shrugged the shrug of the unknowing and ankled toward home.

I wanted to get right to presenting my treasure, but it was not to be. As I passed through Dover Street I was spotted by Bingo Little and fairly dragged into the Drones.

He expressed relief that I'd not dropped from the face of the earthen orb, as I'd been rather neglecting my club-going, so I was obliged to share the much-redacted version of Stinker's harrowing illness and miraculous recovery.

"Oh, then nobody wins," Bingo said sadly. "Oofy bet you had the 'flu, Pongo bet you'd eloped with a French chorus girl, and I bet that Jeeves had finally strangled you with some tie he didn't like."

"And nobody thought to ring up and find out the truth?" Really! Lord love them, but at times they could make me look like some sort of Socrates, and that was saying a bit.

"Well, part of the bet was how long till you turned up."

I let the eyes stray heavenward. "You really bet Jeeves had murdered me?"

"I was joking, but Oofy made me stick to it. So old Stinker's all right now, is he?"

"As rain, or soon to be. He hied home with Stiffy this very a.m. Speaking of which, I'd best be doing the same— to my own home myself, I mean."

"Oh, but Bertie, I had a favour to ask you."

I sighed and sank back into my chair. "Ask away, then."

"Well, you see, Rosie's contract is nearly up and she's trying to get an offer from a rival publisher so her current people will counter with an even better one."

"So have Oofy make her one. Isn't that what he does, when he can be bothered to do it?"

"He won't. Prosser-Glenn don't do that sort of book and Rosie's publishers would know that. I was rather hoping to have them at a dinner party peppered with intellgentsia. To impress them, you know."

I understood. Bingo and Rosie's little house was nice and cosy, but not likely to impress anybody except to offer to lend their decorator or cook. I found myself rather understanding how King Solomon must have felt. In mere moments Bingo would sidle his way into hosting this binge _chez_ Wooster. While the _preux chevalier_ in me wanted to ride to the rescue and simply announce that my abode was at his disposal, the thought of one more moment not locked away in perfect solitude with Jeeves gave me a sinking feeling of the first order.

"Well, I wish I could help you, old egg, but I'm back off to the Continent _toute de suite_ ," I said before the old conscience could get a word in edgewise. "Hasty departure left a few unfinished whatsits and all that. You know the way of these things."

"I do, Bertie, I do," Bingo sighed glumly into his glass. Then he straightened up, looking a fair bit brighter. "I say! As you'll be gone, I don't suppose we could just sort of borrow your flat for an evening?"

"Er," I said, finding the flaw in the plan.  
  
"It'll be left just as we found it, I promise. Oofy was sorry he couldn't help us so he offered to lend out a couple of his staff."

"Strangers mucking about in Jeeves's kitchen? He will kick, Bingo, mark my words." He might or might not have kicked, but there was a good scheme brewing in the back of the Wooster onion and I needed the time to get the kettle to boil.

"You've been round Oofy's place enough times that they won't be strangers. It's only Gates and Mrs Crawford. Look, if you don't mind, can I ask him? They're coming day after tomorrow and I can't wait any longer to tell them where to turn up."

"Bingo!" 

  
"Well, if you weren't nursing clerics you'd have heard about it sooner." 

  
"If you weren't making ridiculous bets— never mind." The kettle boiling in the aft—or is it port?—of the bean gave off a loud whistle. "Wait for me here. I've an errand that can't wait, and then you can put your proposition to Jeeves." 

  
"Oh, thank you, Bertie! Have I ever told you you're a real pal?"

"A time or two," I said distractedly, gathering up the hat and stick, eager to get off on my errand and get Bingo in so that he could bally well get out and leave us to it. "I'll be back in half an hour." I biffed with all due haste. The scheme boiling away required me to pause on the way out to make a request to Rogers that I'm sure he thought rather curious, but he rifled through all the bits and bobs left over from the last Annual Fancy Dress Ball and Bachelor Raffle and came up with the goods.

  


  


Jeeves didn't betray any disappointment when I made my _entrée_ with Bingo, or not to the untrained eye. A slight downturn at one corner of his mouth clearly said to me, 'Blast you, Wooster.' I made Bingo stay put in the sitting room while Jeeves went off to fetch drinks, giving him to understand I needed to pop into the kitchen for a quick word to soften Jeeves up. 

  
"I'm sorry," I whispered without preamble. "Bingo rather waylaid me and sprung this mad scheme. That parcel you took off me is a present for you, so don't open it yet."

That caused an inkling of a smile and he kissed me quickly, just sort of 'yes, lips still here.' "What is this scheme?"

"You may not like it, but believe me when I say it's better than the alternative. I give you full leave both as your supposed employer and as your...er, is there a word for it?"

"There are several possibilities. We can agree on one at a later time if you like."

"Right ho. Anyway, I'm one hundred percent behind you on both fronts if you want to tell Mr Little to go and boil his head. And, er—" I screwed up the nose in consternation, not wanting to tip my hand just yet— "We'll have to take ourselves off for a bit. Brinkley or similar. I didn't quite think it through when I said we wouldn't be in the Metrop. at the crucial moment."

 

Jeeves did rather frown at the prop., but agreed to leave the place to Bingo's disposal on the condition that it be Gates who was given the key. He even threw in a bit of sage advice for the smooth operation of the proceedings, and Bingo floated out on a Nº. 9 cloud.

"Sorry about all this," I said once the Little had gone. "All I could think of was how to get you to myself post-haste and I didn't quite consider every angle."

For that he planted a good one on me. I planted back in kind, and it all got rather heated, resulting in self pinned against the back of the kitchen door with legs wrapped round Jeeves's waist. "I wish," I said when we broke for breath, as well as a happy gasp on my part at what his hand was doing inside my shirt, "we didn't have to pretend. I wish—oh yes, just there—everyone could know."

"I know," he said against my neck. "I know."

The proceedings moved to the nearest bed (being Jeeves's), and I have to say it turned a bit frantic. Several buttons sacrificed themselves for the cause, clothes barely removed before the drawer in the night table crashed to the floor as I grasped blindly about for the familiar blue jar. I don't know if it was finally being alone or just something in the air, but I couldn't bear to wait one second more than I had to. I just slathered a handful of the stuff on him and said, "Now."

"You must let me prepare you," he said, taking up his own measure from the jar and starting in on the usual slow and careful application.

In normal circs this c. a. is half the fun, but on this occasion I swatted his hand away. "Enough, enough."

"Bertie—"

"Now, damn it," I demanded, and it speaks to my sudden desperation that I followed it with a more colourful bit of phrasing without even bothering to blush.

That did it. Something went, I think, a bit wild in his eyes, and in he plunged, none too slowly. It burned, more than usual, but I gritted the teeth and pressed back so as to remove any notion of his waiting it out. It passed—or was overcome—in short order and I was able to thoroughly enjoy a vigorous romp of the first order that tore all sorts of creative phrases from him and had me clawing at the sheets, his back, anything I could reach.

It ended as quickly and explosively as it had begun. I'd not even found breath enough to pronounce it marvellous or some simliar term before Jeeves was moving away. I thought at first he was going for some sort of cloth to clean us up, but when I looked up at him, he was backing up with something like horror etched across his map. "I'm sorry," he said, looking at me as though I was a murder scene and not a beloved bedmate. "I swore to myself I would never— I can only beg your forgiveness."

He made to flee the scene, I think. I made a bewildered grab for his arm and managed to pull him back. "What? What's all this? Sorry? What for?"

"I've hurt you." He indicated ten little spots on my hips that were beginning to look a bit purple.

"I'm afraid I didn't notice it through all the opposite-of-hurting you were doing." I ran my finger over a set of scratches on his upper arm. "You didn't emerge precisely unscathed." I had an inkling this was not going to be one of those quickly smoothed-over misunderstandings, and though reluctant to leave him, neither did I want to squirm my way through some long talk feeling drippy and sticky. "Stay where you are, love. I'll be right back." I had to hide a wince as I got up, but he missed it as his eyes were more or less screwed shut.

The sacking of Rome had nothing on what I did to the bath in searching for something appropriately cloth-like. I gave my relevant bits a hasty swipe and probably looked a right ass running back out with a second towel soaked in warm water before Jeeves could make a break for it, but needs must and there was no one to see. I applied it to him gently enough that it couldn't have been any sort of pain that caused him to flinch when I touched him. "What is it?" I asked in what I hoped was a soothing sort of way. "What do you think you've done that you swore you'd never?"

Head bowed and eyelids squeezing even tighter, he said after a tense moment, very softly, "I swore I would never hurt you as I had been."

The Wooster heart is as hearty a specimen as you'll ever meet, but I felt it break a little bit at hearing what I'd feared was true. "Oh, Jeeves," I sighed. I laid a hand on his cheek and didn't let him flinch away this time. "Look at me, dash it."

He looked, half-cracking the lids to reveal a misty and anguished gaze. "I had hoped to keep it from you," he said, and he sounded more than a bit rough. "Now that you know—" he was trying to move away again— "I am sure you will no longer wish to—"

"Don't talk rot!" I exclaimed, scrambling after him to place both hands on his burdened shoulders. "Whatever blackguard, snake, devil, what-have-you was so stupid and careless with you, it's nothing to do with us, barring your tendency to treat me as some sort of breakable. And if that's what you must do to keep yourself feeling altogether sanguine, then so be it, but I have to tell you— up until the moment you came over all horrified, we'd been doing exactly what I wanted, just the way I wanted it. But if you don't want it to go like that ever again, then neither do I. It's no good if we aren't both all for it."

"I was," Jeeves said. "It is precisely that which frightens me. I could not control myself."

"Yes, and it was a wondrous thing. I know you'd never hurt me on purpose. If I'd said, 'stop, no—'"

"I can only hope it would have reached some small scrap of rationality I still possessed."

"Of course it would."

"How far you trust me only adds to my worry."

"It doesn't worry me. Isn't that sort of the point of trusting?"

"It can be misplaced."

"Not when it's placed in you. Doesn't this blighter rather win if you let him keep you from being happy?"

"You are not the first to tell me so." He seemed, at least, no longer on the verge of locking himself in the bathroom or something equally ridiculous.

"Will you tell me about it?"

"I—"

"Please, Jeeves. If nothing else I want to know what I shouldn't do. If you can't unburden yourself to me, than to whom can you, I ask? There is no one in the world whose good opinion stands less chance of looking on tempests and being shaken."

He finally nodded, slowly and slightly. I dragged both Jeeves and bedcovers over to the settee, as I thought we might have need of the whiskey and the cigarette box that sat next to it. When we'd had a bit of both, he began.

"I think you know the beginning of the story, as alluded to by Inspector Bloom."

"The jewel thievery?" I asked.

"Indeed. The footman I mentioned was a man some years my senior named Pritchard."

"He wasn't just your friend, was he?"

"He was no friend at all, though for some time I refused to believe it. I chanced to see the stolen necklaces in his room, which ultimately led to his arrest, and I must admit that reporting it was partly an act of revenge. But before that—" he took a long breath and gave the noble head a shake. "I too, trusted. I never said no, or stop. He told me that pain was the way of it, and blinded by my adoration, I believed."

"But I know that isn't true," I said. "I know it's not supposed to be awful, or why would anyone bother?"

"Pritchard was not simply a brute. He was charming, convincing. I lived for the rare moments when he would show what I thought to be real affection and care. He consumed me, as you now do."

"And now you're afraid I'll turn out to be the same sort of cad."

"No," he said sharply, catching my hands in his. "I am not. After my experience with Pritchard, it was years before I let anyone touch me. But at last I met someone kind and decent who showed me how far I had been misled."

"I'm jealous at the thought," I said, now thinking I rather understood how he could say he hated Stinker. "But at the same time I think I'd like to shake his hand."

"Impossible, I'm afraid. He was killed at Albert the first day on the Somme."

The chap he'd batmanned for, I wondered, or some other more-than-brother in arms? It wasn't all that important for the moment. "But you would have been, what? Seventeen, eighteen then? You must've been frightfully young when that Pritchard rat...did what he did, if it was years."

"It began the summer of my fifteenth birthday and ended the following winter. I volunteered a month after his arrest."

"Good lord." The things he'd been through! What had I been doing at those ages? Fopping about with nary a care in the world, that's what. As near as I came was the time Catsmeat and I had thought it would be a lark to join the army, but there's only so far the other way a recruiting sergeant can look on one's age, and boys of twelve in Eton collars are past it.

"Please, to have you pity me would be—"

"Pity you? Never. I was more how thinking little I'd amounted to by the same age you already knew so much of the world."

"It was your innocence that endeared you to me. First I wanted to protect it at all costs, and then I thought that if someone with such a heart could think well of me, perhaps I had not been so badly damaged. Captain Barrington loved me, I think, or would have come to, but I denied myself the emotion until I met you and found I could not."

I'd known the love of Jeeves was a precious thing to have bestowed upon me, but now I saw how truly rare and magnificent. This jealousy of his was not lack of faith in me, but himself, the ghosts of all these old wounds. I lugged him over tightly against me. "You see? I know all, and I'm still here. I think no less of you. I think more, if anything, given what you've overcome. Still positively soppy with love. Still eager as ever to commit very risqué unclothed acts. It's all just the same, only I understand you a bit better."

He passed his fingers across his eyes. "I do not deserve you."

"No, I'm sure you deserve much better, but I'm the lucky blighter you happened to fall for, however I've managed it." I gave him a little kiss, like 'yes, lips still here,' but also 'lips still yours.' "Only tell me one last thing, and then this book can be closed for good if you don't want it dragged back out." He gave the nod and I soldiered on. "This history, is it why there seem to be a few...variations of said risqué acts you're not altogether keen on? Not that I mind, you understand, but—"

Happily, he staunched the babble before it got too awfully gibbery. "You refer, I think, to my insistence upon facing you, and my lack of invitation for you to assume the dominant role."

Despite the fact that I myself had said it far more plainly not half an hour before, I blushed. "Yes."

"I must admit it is true. In the first case, I fear inflicting what was inflicted upon me, and in the second, while I know you would never be so cruel and callous, I fear awakening unpleasant memories."

"As I said, if we're not both all for it—"

"But now that you know that an unfavourable reaction on my part would be due to my past and no fault of yours, I hope that with time and patience the obstacle may be overcome. I would like nothing better than to be cured of it."

I was touched, moved, and also a bit stirred elsewhere. "I'll do my best, then. I'd never want to drag you into something you're less than thrilled about, but there is this daydream of mine involving the piano that you simply couldn't act out facing me."

He nuzzled rather suggestively at my neck, which I took to mean both that he found the idea not without its merits, and also that the darkish clouds were beginning to pass.

"What would you say to a bath and a bit of dinner?" I asked. "And then possibly some of this time and patience?"

Jeeves's only response was a 'hmm' as he continued to mouth at my neck.

"Or...this," I said a trifle weakly, letting myself be shifted into a better posish for Jeeves getting his hands (or other parts) wherever he liked. This equated to a fairly wanton sort of sprawl with the blanket cast aside.

For a moment Jeeves just sat back and looked at me. "You are exquisitely beautiful, Bertram," he said with as much feeling as I've ever heard from him.

I felt a tad squirmish under all this praise; I will charitably describe the Wooster corpus as willowy, but it's really more in the line of skinny and knobbly. Still, eye of the beholder and all that. We did eventually make it to the bath, but we needed it even more by the time we got there.

The eventual dinner, by mutual agreement, was a simple affair of sandwiches and soup over which we discussed whether there was anything about that ought to be kept away from prying eyes whilst the flat was hosting Bingo and co.

"Unless anything remains of Mr Pinker's mementos—"

I stopped Jeeves in his tracks. "All that's left is entirely innocent, and he took it all with him," I declared, unwilling to trot back into the jealous realm of past whatsits just at the mo. There was still a good bit of talking-over and working-out to be done, but if my scheme succeeded, we'd have world enough and time to tie every little thread into a neat bow. For now, though, a change of subj. might be in order. "Oofy's staff will think this all horribly strange, won't they?"

"Mr Gates and Mrs Crawford are more than accustomed to events out of the ordinary."

"I suppose they'd have to be, working for Oofy. He once had some Oriental nib staying with him, and nobody was allowed to wear shoes in the house for the duration. Barefoot butlers, I tell you. You would have been scandalised, Jeeves. Come to the door and it's 'may I take your shoes, sir?'"

"Yes, Mr Gates provided a most amusing account of the gentleman's visit."

"Ah, that book of yours. You haven't had any trouble, have you, about the removal of the pages pertaining to Wooster, B.?"

"Regrettably, I thought it best to restore them upon our return from France."

"Oh. Well, I suppose the incriminating whatsits therein do rather pale versus what could get out."

"That was precisely my thought. I shall be obliged, from time to time, to recount some bit of innocent folly."

"I'll bally well write something up myself if it does its bit towards keeping us safe."

Jeeves chuckled lightly, a thing I got to witness more and more these days. "That would be a most singular occurrence."

"What, no gentleman's ever contributed to his own record?"

"I know of only one case. On the death of his valet who had served him some fifty years, Sir Geoffrey Smythe contrived to access to the book to write 'goodbye, old friend' at the end of the final entry."

I couldn't help it. The throat tightened and the eyes stung a bit. "I say. That's rather— do you think they were...?"

"Speculation of that sort is harshly frowned upon, but Sir Geoffrey never married and died himself six months later, apparently of old age."

Or of a broken heart, I thought, which was surely how I'd go if the Spodes and Cheesewrights of the world didn't get me first.

I think Jeeves saw the notion pass over and settle, because he took my hand across the table. "That half century or more is yet ahead of us, Bertie, and every minute I have is yours."

"And all mine are yours, of course." I gave a rueful shake of the bean. "I'm turning into a frightful sop. If I start spouting off about daisy-chains and angel rabbits, do fetch me a stern one to the onion." Love's soppiness put me in mind of poetry, which put me back in mind of the book I'd yet to hand over and the _pièce de résistance_ that went along with it. "Do you want your present now?"

"That would be agreeable."

I ran and fetched the parcel from the hall table. Having handled it, I'm sure he knew it was a book, but he still looked sufficiently moved when he saw the b. in specific and what page was marked in it.

"I hope I didn't get it wrong," I said, shoving my hands into my pockets as I watched him look over it. "Only the bookseller chappie said this was where Yeats got the pilgrim soul bit. You know, from the letter."

Jeeves nodded and looked up from the page. "No, your information was correct. Although I now dare hope that our fate may be happier than that of Monsieur Ronsard and his Hélène."

"Oh? Does it end badly? He didn't tell me it ends badly." I frowned and made a grab at the book, but Jeeves was already on the chesterfield and flipping pages.

"It ends with regret," he said, waving me down next to him.

"Well, we won't be having any of that if I have anything to say about it."

"This passage, I hope, is more apt." Jeeves balanced the book across our knees and read out a bit that had to do with flying and warmth and perfection. I confess that between my shortcomings with the finer points of the language and the sound of his voice reading it, I didn't quite catch everything, but it sounded like just the stuff from where I was sitting.

"Well. That's more like it, what?" I said, and if I sighed, what of it?

"Thank you. It is an exquisite gift." He kissed me with a goodly bit of enthusiasm, though not the sort that leads to anything more than sitting hand in hand and smiling fondly.

"There's one more," I said when my lips were once again available for comment. "That wasn't just an empty envelope marking the page."

Jeeves raised both eyebrows and quirked a mirthful smirk at the card within, which contained no other sentiment than his own name written over the whole thing. It wasn't just an ordinary card, you see; it was one of those thingummies girls wear round their wrists to remind them who they're dancing with, and incidentally the subj. of my curious request to Rogers on my way out of the club.

I produced the last bit of the present from my inner pocket. It still wasn't Japan, but I had the feeling it would be well-received nonetheless. "The Brinkley bit was rather a red herring," I admitted. "Come back to Paris and dance with me?" I hopefully forked out the tickets.

Jeeves smiled, one of those rare just-for-Bertram jaw-crackers. "Always," he said, and gave me the sort of kiss that definitely leads to more than hand-holding.

END

 

  
_Amour rendit ma nature parfaite,_  
_Pure par luy mon essence s'est faite,_  
_Il me donna la vie et le pouvoir,_

_Il eschaufa tout mon sang de sa flame,_  
_Et m'agitant de son vol feit mouvoir_  
_Avecques luy mes pensers et mon ame._

_[Love brought perfection to my nature;_  
_It was he that made my whole being pure._  
_He gave me strength and he gave me life,_

_With his flame he heated my blood all through._  
_And as he caught me up into his flight,_  
_All my thoughts and soul moved with him too.]_

—Pierre de Ronsard  


  


  


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